by Media Optimiser
O. Gaywood
O. Gaywood
The Federal Trade Commission has proposed new guidelines that will mean bloggers and citizen journalists will have to clearly state when they are reviewing a product that they have been gifted. Product reviews are one of the most common ways of letting the public know about the quality of a new release. This is most common in the entertainment industry where a company, or a PR representative, will send a copy of a new CD or book - or tickets to a film, play or gig - with the hope that the journalist likes what they've been sent and proceeds to tell everyone how much they like it.
This worked particularly well with print journalism as editors were much more likely to print reviews of the best albums - or the new hot things - rather than waste valuable column inches on a review of something that they felt didn't make the grade. For the PR representative, this meant that they would, generally, only receive good press to feed back up the line.
However, this is no longer always the case. With the increase in popularity of blogging and personal websites, people have as much space as they want to publish reviews and hate-writing is almost as popular as bloggers writing about what they like.
To overcome this, businesses have been targeting influential blogs and websites with bigger and better incentives than before. Windows, for example, sent new laptops out with their Vista when they wanted their new operating system reviewed. For blackhat SEO fans, sending out gifts for review has been an easy way to get links from a site with editorial control.
The new guidelines are looking to prevent this sort of thing from happening. The FTC says it's to ensure the consumer can exercise better judgement when they're reading a review. According to them, sending free products is akin to compensating the writer - therefore making it an advertisement or paid endorsement.
