FTC to regulate new social media
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will be regulating bloggers and new social media users on Twitter and other sites beginning December 1, 2009.
According to Carl Franzen writing in The Atlantic Wire, paid product endorsements and material connections to product sellers must be disclosed and anyone endorsing a product or service may be liable for false or unsubstantiated claims made in an endorsement up to a fine of $11,000 per infraction.
Now let's get real. The government has bigger and better things to do than regulate bloggers and twitters or tweeters or whatever. The first thing that comes to my mind might be meaningful regulatory reform of the Financial Industry which hasn't gotten anywhere in the last year but that's a story for another day.
So, in the interest of complying, I'm sure that I'll have to add something to the sidebar of this blog and I guess someone will figure out how to twitter the necessary disclaimer to use in under 140 characters.
And as I'm writing this, I'm amused that I've written about homes for sale in new home communities in the Charleston area in the past and while I haven't been given a free home to live in in exchange for my endorsement or review, I have enjoyed a free diet coke or a bottle of water and maybe a cookie or candy bar when visiting new home communities. And once in a while when a new home site agent comes to our office sales meeting to present information about their community, they generally bring breakfast and depending on whether they bring something I like, I might enjoy a free breakfast to just listen to their presentation.
Now, if someone uses me as their real estate agent to buy Charleston real estate as a result of something I've written, then I will earn a commission from the transaction. I'm fairly certain that most people know that's how real estate agents earn a living but in case that needs to be disclosed, consider it done.
I'm glad America's consumers are being protected, aren't you. 