The Federal Trade Commission or FTC is stepping up and plan to target bloggers and other people that make claims or endorse products or services. These really aren’t new rules, they are just now deciding to enforce old rules that were created back in 1980. Basically the FTC is stepping in between advertisers and people that host places for these advertisements and making sure that the person doing the hosting is not making false claims about a product or service they are being paid to advertise. What does this mean? Well it means you can’t lie; unless you disclose that the advertiser is paying you money and then you’re allowed to speak highly of the advertiser’s product or lie.

It isn’t clear right now what the punishment would be or how they will even go about enforcing it. I can only imagine that the complaint letters to various companies and celebrity figures will go up as people try and figure what the new guidelines actually mean. If you have a blog and have always thought you could say anything you wanted to (since you do have free speech) and didn’t think any harm could come to you; then you might want to check some recent news about blogs and bloggers.

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