On Oct 5, 2009, the FTC released new guidelines about the use of testimonials. If you’re a product creator or an affiliate marketer, you should know about this one.

Here’s the easy-to-read Frank Kern version…
http://masscontrolsite.com/blog/?p=59

Here’s the FTC page…
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/10/endortest.shtm

The FTC headlines say “FTC Publishes Final Guides Governing Endorsements, Testimonials.
Changes Affect Testimonial Advertisements, Bloggers, Celebrity Endorsements“.

As Frank says, “New FTC Thing Is A Bigger Deal Than You Might Think”.

Best wishes,
Gary

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Update 10 October:

“The long and short of it is that you need to make sure that you’re
not at risk of being “carpet-bombed” by the upcoming affiliate-squashing
campaign that the FTC is rolling out with its new ultra-unclear guidelines.

And this directly affects ALL affiliates.

And the cost of violation (including inadvertant, well-meaning
violations) rings in at a crippling $11,000 PER INCIDENT.”

That’s from Chris Rempel’s email this morning. You can read his full blog post at

http://www.thelazymarketer.com/blog/2009/10/09/the-sky-is-not-falling-but-this-is-definitely-a-game-changer

There’s going to be more discussion about this topic, for sure.

————–

Update 10 October:

“Update #2: The folks over at Fast­Com­pany inter­viewed FTC rep­re­sen­ta­tives to clar­ify some of its rul­ings, and it did make some of it a lit­tle clearer to appease cer­tain fears. The gist from the inter­view comes down to three impor­tant clarifications:

1) Complaint-Driven

The FTC stated they won’t have review­ers scour­ing the web on a reg­u­lar basis search­ing for vio­la­tors. They will work mostly on a case-by-case basis, based on com­plaints. They will rely more heav­ily on edu­ca­tion and vol­un­tary com­pli­ance than prosecution.

2) Three-Strike Process

They will not fine offend­ers at first. Again, pros­e­cu­tion won’t be their first aim. They will instead fol­low a three-step process with which they give offend­ers some time to redress and com­ply. Even with the most fla­grant offend­ers and “wost-case scenarios.”

They will start by issu­ing a warn­ing. If that doesn’t work, then they will send a cease and desist. And finally, if all else fails, then they will fine the offender up to $11,000.

3) (Per­ceived) Authority

Casual affil­i­ate links or prod­uct reviews are fine. What the FTC seems to be really going after are blogs that are more exten­sive, either as rec­og­nized author­i­ties them­selves, or per­ceived as author­i­ties by blog­ging about one par­tic­u­lar prod­uct or business.

I’m not a lawyer. But my guess is, if your blog is all about reviews but has mul­ti­ple affil­i­ate links, you should be fine. But if you’re an author­ity, or if your blog is all about a par­tic­u­lar prod­uct or busi­ness, you must clearly dis­close your rela­tion­ship and compensation.”

And that quote comes from a long and balanced blog post by Michael Fortin which you can read at

http://www.michelfortin.com/affiliate-marketing/

There’s a massive discussion going on at that page too.

These are interesting days and this is definitely a FTC position that we should all take seriously. Some are saying IN THE STRONGEST TERMS that this could put an end to affiliate marketing as we know it.

My advice — get yourself informed.

Gary.