I wasn’t at all surprised when I logged on to Clickbank last night to see that they have their new terms up requiring clients to agree to before logging in:

All communications and/or representations made by You in connection with any Promotions and/or in relation to any Product will be accurate and contain all disclosures and disclaimers necessary to prevent such Promotions from being false or deceptive. Such disclosures and disclaimers must be made in a clear and conspicuous manner, and will otherwise comply with Your country’s laws and all U.S. federal and state laws, including U.S. Federal Trade Commission regulations, policies and guidelines governing advertising, disclosure and consumer protection, including the FTCs endorsement rules.

And I think this part is new too, once again, no doubt so they can handle the new rules:

ClickBank reserves the right, but not the obligation, to review your Promotions. You agree that ClickBank, in its sole discretion and at any time, may demand changes to product promotion and delivery pages, customer support or other items related to the content of Your Promotions.

Then for vendors:

You will advise ClickBank of any regulatory or legal complaints, or threats of such complaints, that You receive in connection with or relation to such Product You receive from any person, company or entity who purchased such Product or received a Promotion in connection with such Product within two business days of Your receipt of such complaint. You shall assist ClickBank, at Your sole cost and expense, in taking any steps and actions, as necessary and appropriate, or as reasonably requested by ClickBank to respond to and/or resolve such complaints.

And there’s some stuff about indemnification, and that Clickbank doesn’t take responsibility for the stuff you do, as much as the law allows them to avoid it.

Really it’s all pretty sensible. Behave yourself, don’t make false, deceptive or exaggerated claims. Even if you had great results yourself, be careful about what you say. They’re liable, and they will do everything they can to protect their business. You’d do the same.

If you’re wondering what to do and what to worry about, Lynn Terry has some good posts on the new FTC Guides and on how to do FTC compliant endorsements and testimonials. There are also products steadily coming out on how to cope… naturally! When something this big impacts internet marketers of all stripes, there are going to be big product launches.

I haven’t bought anything so far. It’s hard to tell at this point what’s going to do the job. I really don’t have anything in particular to recommend at this time. You do at least need to read up on the materials that are out there free, right now.

The big point to remember is that right now the FTC wants to work with bloggers. Even if they find something wrong with your marketing, the current plan is to give you a chance to comply. Fines aren’t the first thing they’ll be doing, or so they say.

I posted last year about some radio ads I was hearing that really pissed me off. They were for a company called Blue Hippo, and they were offering computers to anyone, regardless of credit. All you had to do was make all 13 payments to pay it off to get the computer.

Umm, except they didn’t actually bother to send computers out until the FTC really got on their case. Except once, and that apparently was a mistake somehow. Out of 35,000 orders. I’m kind of confused about how you send out single computer by mistake, since it indicates you have some method of fulfilling other orders, but maybe that’s just me.

It’s not a work at home scam, but this kind of scam still drives me nuts. It’s taking such advantage of people who have very little money. Rather little money sense too, if they couldn’t save up that money on their own or buy a cheaper computer, but that’s beside the point.

Just reading the article is horrifying. Everything about how the business was run screams that it was set up only as a scam, never with an intention of being an honest business. I guess the owner’s feeling was that if you’re going to run a scam, you may as well be consistent about it.

They even suggest using your SSN and mother’s maiden name for login information. Really. Check this screenshot from their site (click to enlarge):

This is the kind of stuff that makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time. Both because it’s so obvious. It just hurts that people fall for this kind of stuff, but the lack of subtlety is hard to not be amused by.

Then there’s the really tragic part that they could have run this legitimately by shipping out cheap computers and still made insane profits. But some people only understand outright theft, I guess.

I’ll repeat some of my advice from last time. You need a computer so badly, save up for it. Or buy refurbished. Or check Craigslist. Or Freecycle. You can get a decent computer for a few hundred dollars, and even find laptops in the $400 or less range. They won’t be fancy, but they’ll do enough. Amazon also has some pretty good deals.

This kind of scam is a great reminder to always do your homework when dealing with an unfamiliar company online. It can be online shopping or a home business opportunity, but you don’t want to share your information or pay until you’re comfortable that you’re likely to get what you expected.

Oh, I’m not at all surprised about this one. It’s been coming for a while.

But now it’s official. The FTC expects bloggers to disclose payments and freebies given in exchange for product reviews.

Reading through things, I would expect that it could be applied to affiliates as well. After all, that’s one of the major sources of false reviews.

What I think they will need to make more clear is how disclosure is done. I have a standard disclosure on this site that I may accept payment of various sorts. Is that enough or do I need to specify exactly when a particular product review is paid?

Of course, what it basically comes down to is be honest in your reviews.

But this also means that if you are selling products you need to be aware of the rules. If you pay for a review or have affiliates, you could be held responsible for false statements made about your products. That’s not an easy thing to control, but still something you’ll have to watch out for.

No doubt there’s going to be a lot of talk about this over the next few days.

A post over on Jessica Knows about her experience with some reporters misreporting how she discloses on her blog got me thinking about how mom blogs in general seem to be the ones getting an awful lot of the attention when it comes to disclosure issues and advertising. There’s been a lot of talk lately about more regulation of social media marketing and how bloggers disclose. For some reason, mom bloggers seem to be a popular focus of attention.

This drives me nuts. Mom bloggers are far from the only ones getting merchandise to try in order to review it. That’s something that has been going on for a long time in many other areas, as commenter Crunchy Carpets pointed out, and as I’ve been wondering as well. I’ll quote her, as she has it right:

What I am curious about is why the ‘mom’ bloggers seem to be getting more heat about reviews than other areas on the blogosphere. Are the male tech writers getting scrutinized by mainstream media and the FTC? They all get sent free stuff. Are the video game or movie sites getting grilled for their ‘promotional’ efforts. They all get sent free stuff.
Movie sites get sent to sets and on press junkets and given all sorts of freebies in return for ‘good reviews. Their morals have been argued about for years. It is all nothing new.

All this doesn’t mean that I don’t agree with appropriate disclosure. It just means that I don’t see why it’s suddenly a big deal when mom bloggers get the things other sites have long been getting.

It strikes me as sexist too.

Momblebee makes similar points, as do some of the other commenters.

Free samples have been given in exchange for review for a long time, longer than blogging has been around. It’s nothing new. Perhaps the only new thing about it is that just about anyone can start a blog, and not have the costs associated with starting a print magazine or newspaper. It’s very open.

Yes, that means some people will lie about the products because they think only a good review should be posted. Yes, some people will be fooled into buying things they wouldn’t have if an honest review had been posted. Goodness knows that dishonest reviews are common enough in the work at home arena!

But does that mean we need special disclosure rules?

I tend to think not. I would expect the standard rules on making false advertising claims should be sufficient. Best aimed at the blogger, and at the advertiser more if there seems to be a pattern of encouraging false claims. It’s awfully hard for advertisers to control what bloggers say, after all, and still keep things honest in both positive and negative comments about the product.

There’s no doubt that the internet is very much a wild frontier in many ways as of yet. It’s much harder to control what goes on when it’s so easy for content to be created. That’s not a call for speedy, harsh regulation. There’s an advantage to the wild growth and free flow of information that the internet provides.

Should buyers beware when they read online reviews? Absolutely.

Should reviewers disclose if they got products free or have a relationship with the business whose product they are reviewing? Of course.

But no matter how the disclosure is done, it comes down to a matter of trust. A good source will be trusted with or without the disclosure.

A bad one may be trusted once or twice, but if they share false information people will learn. Certainly not as quickly as the FTC would like, but that’s going to happen even with regulation, as new sites and blogs will pop up faster than they can be reviewed… not to mention everything that is based from outside the United States.

Much as one might like all reviews to be honest, it’s not going to happen.

As a blogger or business owner, all you can do is keep yourself honest. Being transparent about when you get something for free is a generally good idea. If nothing else, it will help you if the FTC does keep getting serious about this. It also makes it clearer why you’re talking about a product that maybe you wouldn’t have otherwise. Say what you really feel, even when it’s not 100% positive.

Of course, the focus on mom bloggers may in large part be simply due to the media. And if you think the disclosure issues are going to be a problem, you’ll also want to pay attention to the part about “atypical results”. Lynn Terry has a really good post on this issue. The FTC doesn’t even want atypical results to be used, even if they’re your own experience. They only want typical results, which strikes me as beyond problematic. How can you discuss your own experience then? How do you know what’s typical?

If you review products, whether you’re paid to do so or just receive them free, or even if you’re hoping to get an affiliate commission for sales through your links, it’s really going to pay to think about what you’re saying. Have a disclosure policy and stick strictly to it.

And, of course, keep paying attention to the story as it develops. It doesn’t matter what kind of blog or site you have, if you’re talking about products you need to know what’s might impact your business.

There’s quite a storm of posts out there right now on how the FTC is taking a look at viral marketing as it is performed online. Overall, it’s a good thing too. But it also means you need to be very careful in what you say about products you recommend on your site if you’re getting anything in return for the recommendation.

If you do any paid blogging or affiliate marketing on your site, a disclosure policy is a generally good idea anyhow. I got one when the whole Pay Per Post storm hit and they realized it made sense.

The most basic thing you need to think about this is that you shouldn’t be making claims you can’t prove. You also need to be upfront about if a particular experience is not the usual. That’s just good marketing even if there aren’t legal consequences to consider.

The big areas of concern are probably areas such as make money online and diet claims, as those are quite prone to exaggerated claims or excessive focus on atypical results. But don’t start exaggerating results in other areas. You could get in trouble anywhere.

Some good reading:
FTC To Clamp Down On Social Media Marketing
FTC and Viral Marketers May Square Off