FTC Followup
I received quite a few emails today from people agreeing that my view point in regards to the FTC’s new rules regarding bloggers was correct. A few people felt that I advocated that there be no compliance in regards to marketing, and that people should be able to sell unsafe items, scam people, rip people off and similar. I clearly stated in the article that was not the case, that the FTC should be focusing on obvious criminals – not small businesses that are promoting their product. As someone who has been intimately involved in law enforcement and exposed more than one obvious scam, I am not an advocate for any sort of anarchy when it comes to business – I believe that the industry, the IAB, the businesses do need to sit down, talk out with everyone, including the FTC, about these issues and create best practices.
My statement was clearly that I do not believe it is the duty of the government to regulate free speech in any form, whether it be political, religious or business. Restricting business growth, especially during this economic depression is not in anyone’s best interest.
Anyone who has read my writing over the last 10 years know I believe in ethics in advertising, period.
2 Responses to “FTC Followup”
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How do you put Free Speech and the paid placement and shady areas of marketing together? They’re not even remotely close to the same thing. Are you actually advocating that it should be OK to lie and misrepresent?
The Govt. only role is to provide protections for its citizens. Without these types laws there would be no accountability.
Without assurance all ads become worthless. The only reason the whole ad economy works is because the advertisers are accountable for truth.
From my reading of the original post it would appear that the FTC is actually trying to regulate what could loosely be concieved as advertising standards. I am from the UK where we have an independant body that controls advertising standards, this power not only affects visual and printed media, but also strangely enough websites, of which blogs could be considered a part.
It would appear that the FTC is trying to alleviate underhand marketing techniques, or to prevent misinformation. If you look at the web how many companies claim to be the biggest, the best, No1 and such, and actually how many of these claims can be substansiated. If a company can substansiate a particular claim then that is right it should be able to use it, but in other cases such tactics may be used to the detriment of others where no substansiation is available. Perhaps it is an attempt to level the playing field a little.
Whilst many bodies are reactive rather than proactive, they can have good motives at heart even if it is like trying to shut a stable door after the horse has bolted, lived a great life and been 6′ under for 20 years. Free speach is something that both the US and Uk share, and that will always be the case, it is part of our heritage and our laws. However we have to respect that any claims we make that are likely to fool or mislead others we may be asked to substansiate or change/remove them until such time that we can.