Full Disclosure

I’m not sure if this goes into the “well DUH” file or if it’s actually a good reminder. You’ll have to tell me. I’m talking about the FTC‘s publication of some new guides for bloggers with respect to disclosing relationships they may have with those companies or products they review. In a nutshell, bloggers are advised (they’re not actually rules or pay a fine) to say if they’re being given free product or paid somehow for their review by the reviewed entity. Those same standards don’t apply to “traditional” media such as newspapers. There is a good explanation of the arguments here and of course the blogosphere is buzzing but to me it’s a whole lot of “so what.”It’s no secret that some bloggers will write anything in return for a free game or a T-shirt.  The better ones – what I’ll call the professional web – disclose that.  How can you advocate transparency and do otherwise?  The FTC made a distinction between newspaper and TV sites having to disclose this because they thought, I think correctly, that readers understand that the paper might have received the product for free to review it.  It also has to do with individual identity (your blog) vs. an organization’s identity (CNET or the NY Times).  We’ve all seen the odd positive comment amidst a slew of negative reviews.  Hopefully your response is the same as mine – toss it out.

When I was in college, I reviewed records for the school paper.  I never told my readers that I was getting the albums for free but I assumed that I didn’t have to.  I mean, what college kid could afford to buy several new records each week?  The fact that I got them for free never influenced my review and I sent the companies copies of the bad ones along with the good.  To their credit, there were never any repercussions over a bad review.  Besides, I had an editor and others reviewing my work and they certainly knew I was on record company mailing lists since they had to write the letter to get me there!

What the FTC has done is really to try and lay out some good rules for people who might be posting content simply because they got it for free or because they are being paid to write a bunch of positive posts under lots of names to hype a product.  Yes, that goes on (smarmy PR firms do it) and unfortunately many readers can’t sort out the hype from the facts.

That’s where I come out.  You?