The FTC Rules the Easy Way
ByIf you have a website or a blog that you post reviews on then this is for you. Here I obviously do reviews and so the new FTC rules will apply to me. The rules, under the Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising, material connections to the products mentioned have to be disclosed.
The trouble for me has been in finding out what kind of disclosure I need to put.
Do you know??
Now the FTC Rules are a bit confusing, as in this case I am doing a review of a service that is free. So do I need to put up a disclosure notice or not??
I don’t know but I will anyway, I have found a great free service called CMP.ly and they hope to help to enable site owners have a standard for disclosure so that all the reviewers out there are not going to be giving mixed messages to their readers. It hope to clear up things a little and to lets you understand a few of the FTC Rule in easy terms such as, if a review of a product that was received at no cost to review it a “paid” review? Will you have to disclose the fact that you got a free copy to review it?
CMP.ly puts up some easy to understand rules, numbered 0-6, that give you those types of disclosures. You can then just take the code they give you or you can copy the image with the info in it and paste that in your reviews.
So my Disclosure for this post is below
As you can see it is a pretty straight forward disclosure and you can either just link it as I have above or just use the graphic on it’s own as shown below. With the links being nice and short http://cmp.ly/0, they can be be used when you are Tweeting as well.
This is definitely worth trying as it is a free service.
Leave a comment and let me know your thoughts,
What have you done or used to cover yourself from the FTC Rules.
Jacinta Dean
Sean Beardmore
David Walker
Jeff Sargent
Paul Lear
Paul Wilson
Jan
Ray Briscard
Roberta
Tom Harvey
Andrew Potter
Andy Michaels
Annie
Anthony Smits
Chuck
Dev Maritz
Google page one
Iain Buchanan
Jai
Jose@Notes on Blogging
Luca DiNicola
Marc Milburn
marcus passey
mick fallon
Rob Bradley
20 Comments
January 16th, 2010 at 4:30 pm
Hey James
What a great resource!!! The ingenuity of people – I was fretting over the future about how I will have to disclose to meet FTC standards should I be promoting anything and wow this site looks fantastic – have bookmarked it and am going to sign up for it.
Thanks for sharing it with all of us!
Shaleniie Devi
January 17th, 2010 at 12:39 am
Hey Shaleniie,
When I came across it I thought the same thing.
It makes it not only easy to add disclosures but easy to understand what is need to be done and when you would need to do it.
Glad I could help,
James
January 17th, 2010 at 5:12 am
These is a very nice bit of information. I will apply this service to my blog in the future. Thanks for sharing.
January 17th, 2010 at 8:19 am
Hey James,
I will admit, I have not looked into all of the FTC in detail, but from what you have explained here, it is a clearer to me. It is one area I need to be updated furter on for sure!
I will use the CMP for sure! Thanks James.
Sean
January 17th, 2010 at 8:24 am
This is great, James. I will be exploring this tool extensively, as I have so many websites and products, along with a couple of newsletters, not to mention the email marketing… aargh! How do we keep up with the legal stuff? Now, it looks a little less daunting.
Thanks,
Roberta
Roberta´s last blog ..Google slaps, FTC rules, what’s next?
January 17th, 2010 at 6:14 pm
Hi James,
This an interesting tool but this is FTC hysteria gone mad and one word sums it up – overkill!
I mean, a huge image advertising CMP.ly in every post you make? Who are they anyway? Are they associated with the FTC?
A simple disclosure page on your blog will do the trick rather than promoting a third party site at every opportunity!
Personally, I don’t think you have anything to worry about with this blog
David
David Walker´s last blog ..New Blog Design!
January 17th, 2010 at 10:47 pm
Hey Walter Glad I could help out.
@ Sean I have not done too much digging but think this is an easy answer for anyone that is worried.
@ Roberta wow, you have a lot of stuff going on there, how do you manage it all. Great subject for a blog post there.
@ David You do not need the image to be that big, this is just an example. The way I would do a disclosure for this post would be just a link like I have shown underneath the line
“So my Disclosure for this post is below”
that is a simple link to the page. I for one would not opt for the image but would crop it if I did.
Talk soon,
James
January 18th, 2010 at 12:57 pm
Hi James,
The point is that it is completely unneccessary!
How many of the “big” bloggers do you see displaying disclosure images or linking out to third party disclosure websites at every opportunity?
NONE!
By all means cover yourself with your own disclosure policy page but don’t give random third party websites your valuable link juice on every darn page in an attempt to prevent/solve a problem that doesn’t exist!
David
David Walker´s last blog ..New Blog Design!
January 18th, 2010 at 3:54 pm
Hey David,
I am just trying to help out the people that would not know where to start with their owm disclosure policy page if they do want to cover themselves.
I am only trying to help.
You can copy the image and host it yourself, you do not need to give them any links. It will also give people an idea of what they can do for their disclosure policy page
In the post are just examples of what you can do.
James
January 18th, 2010 at 7:52 pm
Hey James,
Seems a good idea, but not knowing the rules myself either, it seems a shame to have to put something like this on every post.
Like David W said, is this not something that can be put on a single page on your blog that covers everything?
Bloody FTC, no one seems to know exactly where they stand with it!!
Talk soon,
Paul
Paul Wilson´s last blog ..The Rules of Adswaps
January 18th, 2010 at 8:29 pm
Hey Paul,
I hear you man, this is just one option, I would never use the image one myself if I was going to use it then I would just link it up.
But if you take a look through all the disclosures it gives you a good idea where to start with your own if needed.
Also as David said I doubt very much that I would need one here anyway, as he also says it is a problem that doesn’t exist, even so many people are worried that it does, I am not trying to fuel that fire but this will help them if they feel they need to have one and save them hours of wasted time searching for what they need to do.
Which is probably nothing
Cheers,
James
January 19th, 2010 at 11:16 am
Hi James,
This is a great debate!
Personally, I don’t see any need whatsoever to emblazon adverts for (likely) non-FTC regulated website or give them free links at any opportunity, in the name of staying “safe”.
All you need is one Disclosure Page. I believe these are a good idea because it makes you transparent to your readers, but there is no need to link to this page within your posts etc. either.
If the worst thing you ever do online is link out to an affiliate offer and not shout from the rooftops that you will get paid as a result of any sales then you have done very well indeed.
I encourage EVERYONE who has read this post to vist JohnChow.com and read his disclosure page. He treats this entire situation with the good humour and non-seriousness it deserves.
There are far more important things to worry about – like actually ranking well enough and getting enough traffic to your site so the FTC actually become aware of your existence.
They are NOT the all seeing eye (that’s Google, surely?)
Anyway, I gotta go as two guys in dark suits and sunglasses have just pulled up outside my house.
I guess they just want directions or something…
David
January 20th, 2010 at 12:14 pm
Hi James,
Great little service. And I like the fact that it is FREE. Looks fairly simple to use and the short links can be included in tweets.
Will be signing up. I have already taken care of the stuff for my website. I actually bought the software from Mike Young, however I was wondering about twitter etc.
Hope everything is going well.
Jacinta
Jacinta Dean´s last blog ..X Stripper And John Thornhill!
January 20th, 2010 at 8:55 pm
Hey James,
This is a confusing law but regardless of whether we agree or not I think it’s important to comply the best we can. This is a service that I had not heard of – thanks for pointing it out. You may find this free service usefull as well http://disclosurepolicy.org/ and no it’s not an affiliate link
January 22nd, 2010 at 3:21 pm
Thanks a lot James. Just what i needed when I wanted it!
January 23rd, 2010 at 3:15 am
The disclosure presented here will not do for people with monetized blogs and websites.
January 23rd, 2010 at 8:59 am
Hey Jacinta, it is a great service and very easy to use.
@ Luca I have to agree on the confusing bit there, as you say though everyone has to comply it is not something we can just ignore.
@ Annie Glad I could help out.
@ Chuck The disclosure presented is one of six to choose from and they do cover monetized blogs and websites too. As this is a post that I decided to write for a free service that I have no conection with I used the one above that states just that.
Check out the others and I am sure you will find one or more you can use.
January 26th, 2010 at 1:53 am
Hi James.
Being so new to all this, I’m not confused in any way at all because I know so little about it.
However I can see the time coming more sooner than later when I’ll need to find out what all the hype is about.
I’ll know where to come to start my research.
Cheers
Sean K
February 3rd, 2010 at 1:53 pm
Hey James,
Sounds like a little bit of controversy here.
I read every bit of the new FTC rules and as I was reading it I just kept shaking my head and muttering to myself, “this is going to do nothing but cause mass confusion”.
At the moment I don’t have a disclosure policy on my blog but I’ll get to it when I have time. (not at the top of my to do list)
The only thing that really caught my attention was the stuff about testimonials on sales pages. This is something you need to pay attention to. There are so many sales pages out there with bogus testimonials it’s not even funny.
If you buy a product with MRR or PLR rights that comes with a sales letter the first thing you need to do is strip out the testimonials because they are not from your customers. Testimonials are great to have and they will definitely help conversions but they must be your own.
If you’re selling your own products just ask your customers if they like what they have purchased could they please give a testimonial. I think you might be surprised at the response.
Later,
Jeff Sargent
Jeff Sargent´s last blog ..Aweber Click Tracking – How Not To Do It
February 15th, 2010 at 12:11 am
James
An interesting post and subsequent debate…. Thanks for the resource, I do agree that the image on every post may be overkill, whether large or small, however think that it is a topic that we cannot afford to overlook and perhaps the way forward is to take on board the wording from the statements to incorporate into our blogs/posts.
All the best
Tom
Tom Harvey´s last blog ..2009 Draws To A Close and Looking Forward to 2010…