It's not possible to police millions of bloggers, but IIUC if some company with deep pockets enlists thousands of bloggers in a stealth "social marketing" campaign, and the ruse is discovered, the company can now be fined for deceptive trading practices.
While this would be a good use for the guidelines, http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/10/endortest.shtm seems to imply that the onus is on the blogger to declare material connections. So while it might help with astroturfing, I don't see it really stopping a company with deep pockets from sending out cash and items to review to bloggers.I also would not see the guidelines increasing liability for the company if the ftc is holding bloggers responsible for declaring endorsements.
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It's not possible to police millions of bloggers, but IIUC if some company with deep pockets enlists thousands of bloggers in a stealth "social marketing" campaign, and the ruse is discovered, the company can now be fined for deceptive trading practices.
While this would be a good use for the guidelines, http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/10/endortest.shtm seems to imply that the onus is on the blogger to declare material connections. So while it might help with astroturfing, I don't see it really stopping a company with deep pockets from sending out cash and items to review to bloggers.I also would not see the guidelines increasing liability for the company if the ftc is holding bloggers responsible for declaring endorsements.