The FTC Takes On Paid Posts

This summer, the Federal trade Commission is expected to issue new advertising guidelines that will require bloggers to disclose when they're writing about a sponsor's product and voicing opinions that aren't their own. The new FTC guidelines say that blog authors should disclose when they're being compensated by an advertiser to discuss a product. It's the first revision of the FTC's guidelines for editorials and testimonials in ads since 1980, and regulators say it's needed in an era when consumers increasingly turn to blogs and other amateur Web sites for information about the goods and services they buy. The rules seek to clear up some of the tangled connections on Web sites that make it hard for readers to tell who's getting incentives from whom.