Federal Trading Commission: Aims for a Headshot. Should Bloggers beware?

Yesterday evening, late enough to not add a proper respond, I learned via Ana from the Book Smugglers through Twitter that the Federal Trade Commission [FTC] had decided to become hip with the time and revise its texts in regards to the growing importance of the Internet as a marketing tool used for promotion of products. To be honest I am not exactly knowledgeable in the more formal English vocabulary, so I am giving you my simple minded understanding of the matter. It would seem that the FTC is trying to regulate review bloggers or so this paragraph leads me to believe.

The revised Guides also add new examples to illustrate the long standing principle that “material connections” (sometimes payments or free products) between advertisers and endorsers – connections that consumers would not expect – must be disclosed. These examples address what constitutes an endorsement when the message is conveyed by bloggers or other “word-of-mouth” marketers. The revised Guides specify that while decisions will be reached on a case-by-case basis, the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement. Thus, bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service. Likewise, if a company refers in an advertisement to the findings of a research organization that conducted research sponsored by the company, the advertisement must disclose the connection between the advertiser and the research organization. And a paid endorsement – like any other advertisement – is deceptive if it makes false or misleading claims.

First though here are the two articles, which influenced my own opinion on this matter. First there is the Book Smugglers official reply to this article and the next one, also provided by the Smugglers, hosts a conversation with a FTC employee over at Reluctant Habits.

At first sight what the FTC is trying to do seems pointless, because with or without disclosure the followers of any blog will continue to trust the reviewer based on previous reviews and a reputation created through online behavior in general. It’s the mechanism behind book review bloggers for instance, which makes the practice so appealing. A book reviewer receives books without any shipping fees and in return the reviewer supplies the publishers with a critique, which I have to say with most blogs is thorough, analytical and never cheerfully positive and full of praise. That’s not how we as review bloggers function and being generally excited about what we do shouldn’t be considered as a form of endorsement especially, when we do what we do free of charge.

This as well as the interview leads me to think that the FTC has a rather skewed grasp of the nature of blogging. I say this on Cleland’s arguments and how he keeps making comparisons between professional reviewing and review blogging, when in reality both work in a different variety of ways and different rules apply to both. The FTC seems to not understand that and although so far bloggers are asked of the minimum aka supplying information whether their review copies have been sent my publishers or not. Nevertheless I feel that this is pointless and accomplishes nothing or at least the purpose is generally lost to me.

From the same interview I also learn that the FTC won’t be exerting control over the bloggers per se, since the sheer number of bloggers reviewing any kind of product would be enough to overwhelm a hundred FTCs, but will press the companies supplying the products. I interpret this [and this is the most drastic scenario] as the end of the review blogging as we know it in the US. It’s true that reviewers discuss products that they originally own, in our case, we do review books we have bought or have taken from the library, but the bristling activity on our blogs comes from the review copies and ARCs and galleys we receive. So if the FTC is extra serious about this, then the US publishers will be forced into dropping the practice of sending review copies to bloggers revert back to the print venues. However I do not think it will come to that.

Then there is the issue of international bloggers. I am extremely curious about this one, since I am one of the bloggers based outside US borders and despite that use Blogger and aim for the US and UK audience. The FTC will not have any jurisdiction over these blogs and what’s the procedure then? Does this apply for us? I am also considering that if the FTC press publishers so that they are unable to send review copies inside US border, would that mean that they will move their practice outside the borders favoring international bloggers?

My speculations are just that. Extreme suggestions if this doesn’t turn out to be just a one week alarm raiser. My realistic estimations however are that nothing of any great importance will happen.

Zombie Week: Me & Zombie, Sitting in a Tree [don't gasp, I decapitate in the end]

In this post I decided to chill a bit and let my thoughts out from the stables and in the lush green fields to do whatever thoughts do best, roam free as a river. So Zombie Week is full swing, which I promise to check out in full detail, when this hellish week is over with, but I want to slow down a bit with the festivities and just ramble about zombies, me and my love with these horrifying creatures.

I had no inkling about what exactly to talk about in this post about zombies, until CJ asked a great question in the comment section on my Gallery post on Sunday. Why do I love zombies? It’s not an easy thing to answer and my comment reply was a very clumsy attempt or at least a very slimmed down version. My introduction to zombies came somewhere around my sixth or perhaps it was my eight year, pretty early in adolescence. My father was watching a horror movie with the undead in a hospital and after seeing a very bloody bathroom and shuffling nurses, I immediately developed a phobia of the dark and hospitals as well ill lit rooms, while zombies continued to haunt me. I had very Romero style dreams, where I stayed asleep long enough to know for sure I became zombie munchies.

Way to go, dad. In this case though I might thank him, because after all zombies are awesome.

But in spite of this condition I returned to zombies like a very stupid moth with accelerated healing factor to a very powerful electric lantern. I guess to a point I liked to be scared and to be honest I still have no recollection of any cognitive decision on why I would willingly scare the crap out of myself. As I began to write more, read more and think more on why people did things for story purposes I began to discover why I had this masochistic love-terror exchange with zombies. For one I built resilience to this and soon the nights didn’t seem so scary, because I got used to zombies. I wasn’t scared of blood and gore on television and I certainly could stomach some in real life. This is highly individual though, since zombies are my personal phobia and story of overcoming them and then beginning to enjoy the stories behind them. Different people have their personal boogeyman that may be rooted in reality or in fiction.

However what people cannot deny is that the zombie is one of the scariest monsters and a wide for interpretation symbol and metaphor. I have been speaking about the zombie as the reflection of the consumer behavior in rendering people generic in their unity to mindlessly buy more and more without considering whether they really need what they buy or not. This is the flesh eating behavior in zombies that wander aimlessly and eat whenever they get the chance as much as possible until everything is gone. However this consumerism behavior is killing not only individualism, but creativity as people are preoccupied with buying choosing and replacing items they already possess with newer models, because trends demand it and what’s society than not one big trend. I’d also go as far as stating that it also whacks off intellect, since we are busy sorting through advertisements and working to buy, buy, buy. And this is reflected in the zombie effortlessly, in its slack eyes and faint shuffle. The zombie captures the fatigue and the hollowness we all get emotionally when we sit down after twelve hours at the work place, turn the TV on and shut our brains out.

All in all zombies are the spokesperson for this century’s vices, which is evident from their rise into popularity in video games, movies and fiction.

PS: Here is a wee treat from my favorite Youtube lady, Venetian Princess: