

Soon, Bloggers Must Give Full Disclosure  - edw519
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/06/business/media/06adco.html?hpw

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johnnyg
The "it exists, lets regulate it" mentality scares me. Here are the likely
results of this move:

1\. Yet another step away from laws made by elected law makers. Over time, the
accumulation of these can threaten democracies. (Of course, each one in
isolation is "no big deal".)

2\. Another cost of doing business for companies providing freebies. Another
junior lawyer on the payroll.

3\. A few bloggers will be singled out and ruined federal style, while the
vast majority will skate on by living with the low but present risk of being
among the unlucky hanging over there head.

My wife had lunch with a guy who works at the FCC on Saturday. You know what
the big issue they are battling internally is? On Friday they banned accessing
Hulu.com because so many people were streaming instead of working that it was
killing the bandwidth for all. Is this who gets to tell society if a blogger
is on the level or not? Why am I as a blog reader less trusted than an
FCC/FTC/Any Other Agency employee?

I'm reading YCombinator at work because it pays to be educated and up to date.
This is where the smart people are so this is what I read. I doubt watching
"Glee" at work provides FCC employees the same benefit.

~~~
hughprime
Aside from that, they _do_ realize that the internet is an international
medium and the vast majority of it isn't subject to FCC rules, right?

Speaking of which, as a non-US citizen, I'd like to invite companies to send
me free products so I can say nice things about them on my blog!

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kakooljay
I agree, MikeD... typical big government thinking: expensive, intrusive, &
ineffective...

"For bloggers who review products, this means that the days of an unimpeded
flow of giveaways may be over."

Really? Does anyone actually think bloggers who review products PAY for the
stuff they review? Did Kirstie Alley pay to enrol in Jenny Craig? Does Roger
Ebert pay to see movies? C'mon...

I'd rather see the FTC spending taxpayers money to teach people about naivety:
"And remember, when someone blogs about their breakfast and tells you that
'Super Sugary Maple Pops are part of a well balanced diet' you might want to
question their motives."

What's next? Maybe the FTC should tackle Buzz marketing.. When a stranger
strikes up a "random" conversation about "these new shoes that stimulate your
chakras as you walk," should the FTC be monitoring the conversation? Good luck
(and good night).

O - one last rhetorical Q: what was the FTC doing when this stuff happened?
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_administration_payment_of_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_administration_payment_of_columnists)

------
Zak
What I really want to know is, where in the constitution does it say they can
do this? I know where it says they _can't_ , but they seem to have found some
way to twist that so as to get away with it.

~~~
evgen
Where does it say you can't shout "fire" in a crowded theatre? Where does it
say you can't advertise your new wonder drug by claiming it cures cancer and
has no side-effects? Free speech is not an absolute right, and commercial
speech is the most regulated type of speech act; when you take a payment for
what you say then you are obligated to disclose this fact.

If bloggers want to be treated like real, grown-up journalists then they have
to start living by the same rules that these journalists live by.

~~~
jerf
"real, grown-up journalists"

Where does the rule say anything about "journalist"? The rule appears to apply
to anybody who says anything on Facebook to their friends. It appears to apply
if you got a free ticket in your cereal box for a movie, then talk about it on
Twitter. At all. $11,000 if you don't "disclose" in an unspecified manner. It
appears to be incredibly broad.

Even in the journalism case I consider it dubious, but you seem to be doing
the same thing the government is, assuming that all Internet traffic is
"journalism" and must be regulated as such. That's not even remotely true. It
is as true as saying all spoken words should be regulated as journalism, for
pretty much the same reasons; sure, some vanishing fraction of spoken words
are journalism but trying to regulate it all as if it were is an enormous
category error.

~~~
evgen
If bloggers and twitterers want to hide behind shield laws that protect
journalists then they get all of the baggage that comes with that label. They
don't get to decide that they are journalists one day (when they want the
protection that comes from that label) and are not journalists on the next
(when they want to chat up the movie they just saw for free without mentioning
that they were paid to do so.)

I would be more than happy to proclaim that nothing mentioned on the internet
is journalism unless it came from someone that would have been classified as
such before the internet came into existence, but I think that a vocal
minority would bitch and moan about such a distinction. The internet's
chattering classes created this problem in the first place by proclaiming
blogging to be journalism and worthy of the protections provided to people
working in this field and I am enjoying the prospect of watching them being
forced to live up to the responsibilities that come with these rights.

~~~
jerf
You seem to have it out for "bloggers". That's a class distinction so
worthless I'd say you should discard it; it's just people, talking, as silly a
classification as "phoners". You want to talk entirely about journalism, then
go pressure the rule makers to limit this to journalism. (The fact that you
can't work out a definition of journalism, which you allude to, is your
problem as someone who wants to regulate it, not mine. I'm underwhelmed by the
need for this law even in old media.)

Meanwhile, a Facebook user who doesn't give a shit about whether you consider
them a "blogger" and wouldn't know what an "A-list" was if you hit them with
it, and ultimately isn't worth your derision for the mere fact that someone
somewhere thinks it should be called "blogging" instead of just "talking", is
going to incur liabilities for a crime they have no reason to believe is a
crime. Again, this law isn't limiting itself to "journalism" anywhere that I
can see. (I say "liability" because clearly the government is not going to be
able to perfectly enforce this, but I consider a poorly-enforced bad law worse
than a well-enforced one; a democracy has ways of dealing with the latter.)

Letting someone split your world into "bloggers" and "nonbloggers" is a
terrible move. It's just people, talking. Some use the phone, some talk over
the air, some post comments on Hacker News. There isn't a separate division of
people called "bloggers" that are some sort of separate species that should
have special restrictions placed on them. It's just a power ploy by people who
want you to let them impose their power trip on just folk.

------
credo
Disclosing a conflict of interest is always a good thing.

I think some people are misinterpreting the rule. For example ..

>>The rule appears to apply to anybody who says anything on Facebook to their
friends.

No, if you have no paid connections with the advertisers on your blog, the
rule won't apply to you.

>>Taken to the extreme, this makes it more challenging for any private citizen
to use any form of media, including blogs and social networks, to express an
idea, opinion, or endorsement.

Why is is challenging for a blogger to disclose that his "review" was preceded
by a payment from the company whose product he is reviewing ?

~~~
apowell
_Disclosing a conflict of interest is always a good thing._

Agreed. But this isn't about disclosing a conflict of interest; this is about
the creation of a federal regulation that is both vague and unnecessary.

 _Why is is challenging for a blogger to disclose that his "review" was
preceded by a payment from the company whose product he is reviewing?_

As I stated earlier, it's a hurdle just to become familiar with the
regulations that exist and confirm that you are in compliance. Imagine that a
person doesn't blog today but wants to get into it - that person may be
deterred by knowing that there is a world of federal regulation out there that
they don't understand.

~~~
credo
"world of federal regulations" ?

if you take money from a company and review their products, disclose the
conflict of interest. This is fairly simple. Most new bloggers can understand
this and most new bloggers aren't going to get paid for writing reviews
anyway.

Why do you see this as a problem ?

~~~
apowell
Many new bloggers (or social media participants) may not know that the federal
government has created regulations that pertain to what they do. And if they
did know that the regulations exist, they may not know how to find those
regulations, and they may not know how to be confident they comply (see my
other message speculating on what sort of disclosure is necessary - do you
really want to be the one in court arguing that your disclosure was prominent
enough?). Creating this regulation adds a layer of complexity that I don't
think is necessary.

Perhaps we have fundamentally different views on the role of the government in
regulating speech. I agree that disclosing conflicts is desirable, and I think
that people should behave ethically when reviewing products. However, I'm not
sure why you feel government intervention is necessary here.

~~~
credo
Commercial speech is already regulated. (unless you're also suggesting that
all commercial speech be unregulated) It is inconsistent for you to suggest
that bloggers should be given an exception.

Anyway, I'm not worried about the regulation bogey-man here. New bloggers
aren't going to be paid by companies to promote their products. If they are
savvy enough to get a paid contract, it shouldn't be too difficult for them to
publicly disclose their conflict of interest.

------
apowell
I think that savvy organizations are going to bury these disclosures in their
Terms & Conditions (or perhaps a new "Disclosures" page will become common?)
along with everything else they don't care if you read, but still want you to
be 'notified of' and bound by.

~~~
petercooper
With regards to how the disclosure should be made, the FCC are leaving it
quite open ended, but it has to be, and I forget what the _exact_ word is in
the FCC document but it's something like, "prominent."

~~~
apowell
Thank you for the clarification. I'm not sure if that makes things better or
worse -- now, without specific case law, it will be impossible to know whether
you are in compliance.

For instance, is a disclosure page enough? What if you link to it at the
bottom of the post? What if the disclosure itself is at the end of the post?
Does the disclosure need to be on top? Does it need to be on top and more
prominent than the rest of the text?

In general, I'm very uncomfortable with the creation of regulatory hurdles for
bloggers. The penalty for the infraction itself isn't the only regulatory
hurdle - it's a hurdle just to become familiar with the regulations that exist
and confirm that you are in compliance.

Taken to the extreme, this makes it more challenging for any private citizen
to use any form of media, including blogs and social networks, to express an
idea, opinion, or endorsement.

------
miked
There's a slippery slope here, and it worries me, particularly as the FTC can
pretty much just make it up as they go along. I want to live in a nation ruled
by laws, not one ruled by men.

~~~
fnid
What is the difference? Laws are created by men and women.

