Interactive Ad Bureau Decries New FTC Blogger Guidelines

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on October 16, 2009 - 8:35am.

New York - The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), a consortium of top technology firms and advertisers, called on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) this week to withdraw its new rules regarding disclosure of payments to bloggers for their coverage, arguing that "offline media have engaged [in such practices] for decades." The FTC last week set new guidelines concerning disclosures made in social media and on blogs where compensation has been given for an endorsement or testimonial.

The IAB argues that potential civil enforcement penalties on bloggers who don't follow the disclosure guidelines are "unfair and unconstitutional."

"The practices have long been afforded strong First Amendment protections in traditional media outlets, but the Commission is saying that the same speech deserves fewer Constitutional protections online," wrote IAB president and CEO Randall Rothenberg.

"It's not clear what exactly the IAB thinks the constitutional issue is here," Rich Cleland, assistant director of the FTC's division of ad practices, told ClickZ News.

"The guidelines are in fact just guidelines and to the extent that they focus on [misleading] commercial activity and practices that are essentially promoting products in exchange for payments or free merchandise...we don't think that there's a constitutional issue."

http://blog.clickz.com/091016-123954.html

http://snipurl.com/sjyup (DMW previous coverage)

http://www.iab.net