Internet Marketing Law and Law Blog Changes
You asked for more information on the New Law Internet FTC guidelines which will AFFECT Testimonial Advertisements, Bloggers, and Celebrity Endorsements and consequently all affiliate marketers working online.
Go here to read the complete ruling on blogging law, Internet Marketing Law use of testimonials which takes effect on December 01, 2009
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission released their new guidelines (law) on
10/05/2009. FTC has now Publishes Final Guides Governing Endorsements, Testimonials these Changes Affect Testimonial Advertisements, Bloggers, and Celebrity Endorsements You will find the complete guidelines at
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/10/endortest.shtm.
The notice incorporates several changes to the FTC’s Guides (law Internet) Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising, which address endorsements by consumers, experts, organizations, and celebrities, as well as the disclosure of important connections between advertisers and endorsers.
As the FTC changes are a long read, I will try to summarize the main points of this recently updated Internet Marketing law.
First if you have a relationship with someone whose product you are
endorsing or promoting, you must disclose that relationship. That means you have to say explicitly if you received any type of compensation wither it is a free copy of the product and/or any payment or gift for your endorsement.
If you use testimonials to sell a product on your website, blog, or even someone Else’s site, for instance a sales page?, you can not use testimonials that give specific results without also telling readers/viewers what the typical results are.
If you or the product owner do not have proof, or know the actual percentages do not make assumptions or use testimonies from one or more people having great results. For instance the FTC law wants to see the normal results of people making money and how much, or how much weight the average person looses using a product not the outstanding ones, etc.
The fine is $11,000 per violation.
Do not forget about sites you have had up for some time, go back and correct them now.
I strongly recommend that you read the details in the guidelines (law internet, but these are the key points. I’m no lawyer, so do get true legal advice from a lawyer so you can figuring out how you need to respond to the new regulations.
It seems to me that some parts of the new guidelines are vague. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission says they have done this somewhat on purpose, and that they will be handling things on a
case by case basis.
That will make it more difficult to know how to comply in certain
situations, because it is hard to figure out how the guidelines really
apply, but that’s the way they did it.
That leaves a number of unresolved questions, the answers will not be available until the FTC starts enforcing the new regulations.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission said that the guidelines are meant to clarify advertising on blogs and for corporations, however the way these regulations (laws) are written
they could go after just about any marketer due to the vague
language.
The new Internet marketing regulations were approved by a unanimous vote (4-0), so there is virtually no chance that
they will not go into effect on the scheduled date. There is an out cry by Internet Marketers and lawyers have been hired however at this time you as an Internet Marketer, Blogger will have to live with this ruling whether we like it or not.
For Internet marketers with businesses outside the U.S.?
If you are outside the U.S. and you are not selling to people inside
the U.S., you are not affected at all.
However most Internet businesses do sell to people in the
U.S. So be safe and assume that folks in the United States will
buy your products, and that you should follow the FTC guidelines.
What about testimonials on a sales page?
The testimonials on sales pages that say things
like, “I made $10,000 the first 3 days with just one tip from this great product!!!” You more than likely will not be seeing them.
It has been perfectly acceptable to cherry-pick great results
like that and cover yourself with a simple disclaimer like this:
“These results aren’t typical.” Not anymore.
The new FTC guidelines say, “advertisements that feature a consumer and convey his or her experience with a product or service as typical when that is not the case will be required to clearly disclose the results that consumers can generally expect.”
That means if you want to mention specific results in your advertisement testimonials, you will have to give the typical results from the use of the product.
We all know what the typical results are for most information
products… people buy them and do nothing with them. That means
it is going to be nearly impossible for you to quantify a “typical” result. If you don’t know what results at least a statistically significant sample of buyers got, you can say what’s typical!
All of that means is you really can not use most
results-based testimonials. Period. Unless you want to risk an
$11,000 fine each time you get caught breaking this law.
You will be able to use testimonials where people say they love your
product, or like you a lot, or generally think you are a great person. However this type of indorsment tends not to be a powerful selling tool, but it will pass.
You will also have to disclose if your friends wrote your testimonials.
Be Honest it is the best way not to get in trouble.
The best advice do not depend on testimonials to sell your
product. Make sure your offer is good enough to sell on its own so you will not need one.
Celebrity endorsers also are addressed in the revised Guides. The revised FTC Guides reflect Commission case law and clearly state that both advertisers and endorsers may be liable for false or unsubstantiated claims made in an endorsement – or for failure to disclose material connections between the advertiser and endorsers. The revised Guides (laws Internet) also make it clear that celebrities have a duty to disclose their relationships with advertisers when making endorsements outside the context of traditional ads, such as on talk shows or in social media.
If you are an affiliate, you will have to disclose that you are getting
paid when people buy through your affiliate link.
You will need to tell people that your ClickBank link is
indeed a ClickBank link, even if you have your own
“www.mysite. com/product” or whatever.
There are different statements you might use to comply with this ruling. The first way is to include a statement on your site or possibly include it in your privacy policy that states something like this:
“Links on this site for products or reviews are affiliate links. I/company gets paid a commission when you buy a product after clicking on one of these links.”
You might also say something like, “I get paid a commission when you buy through this link.”
or something like “when you click on this links you will be taken to company XXX sales page (they pay me a commishion for sales)
Do these disclaimers cover you legally? Hard to say, the FTC
has not cleared that up yet.
Finally, as an affiliate marketer be VERY careful about using the
promotional materials and email templates produced by sellers make sure they pass the guide lines, laws and Internet requirements
Frequently these promotional materials and email templates contain claims about results, and the new FTC guidelines frown on that unless typical results are given.
The new FTC guidelines dos not at this time cover e-mail marketing by it’s self however remember the vaige language of this bill the odds are good this will be considered covered as well. So if you are in doubt, I recommend you leave it out or back it up!
Get knowledgeable genuine legal advice from a lawyer that understands this stuff, especially if you have a big site, lots of traffic, and particularly if you are blogging and/or have a large mailing list.
Affiliate marketer, get busy adding disclosures to the
sites you use to promote products. That includes blogs, review
pages, and I would also go through my websites.
Definitely add a disclosure to your site saying that your
promotional links are affiliate links, and that you get paid when
people buy through those links.
Do not forget to tell buyers that you get paid for their response to free items, even putting in their email address, bonuses or what ever you can think of do not hide anything is my advise if you are getting paid.
When in doubt, disclose, disclose, disclose give more
information than you think you need. It will not pay to get on
the wrong side of this new Internet marketing law, ruling, on Blogging and Endorsements.
If you are a product marketer, you probably have lots of work to do.
Here is a very brief (and probably incomplete) checklist:
First start scrubbing your results-based testimonials from your sales
pages. If you actually CAN quantify typical/average results, go
ahead and do that, however if you do not have proof do not do it. In fact,during the comment period on the rules, some folks brought that up with the FTC, specifically for weight loss products…and the FTC promptly ignored it.
Make sure you change your affiliate email templates (and other things, like solo ads) to remove any unsubstanciated results claims.
Make sure your affiliates know to change to your new ad pages, e-mails, ect.
Make sure you crub your products of any results claims as well, unless they are your personal results and if they are include ALL of your results.
If your testimonials are from people you gave a free copy of
your product to, say so.
Bottom line, disclose, disclose, disclose!
These new guidelines (laws) are not the death of Blogging, Internet
marketing, or of affiliate marketing, or if you are selling a product on the Internet.
Please do not try to figure out a way around this new ruling do realize these are actually Internet laws taking the risk of racking up some eye-popping fines, just take some reasonable steps to comply with the new guidelines as soon as you can… and as completely as you can.
One thing these new guidelines are going to make happen is
it is going to be a lot harder for people to sell with hype and false promises. Those type of fraudulent sellers have and do only hurt everybody by giving Internet marketing a bad name.
The Internet marketer who can be completely honest will still make money and we will not have to compete against the frauds like we have in the past.
To Your Financial Success
Tags: FTC, Internet marketing law, law, ruling
Laws & Changes That Effect Internet Marketing | Nancy Nikolauson | 
October 31, 2009 8:41 AM | 
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