The new FTC guidelines that go into effect on December 1, 2009 require advertisers to disclose any payments they recieve. But how extensive do the disclosures need to be? The full 81 pages of the guidelines are available on the FTC Web site (PDF).
You may have seen some blogs for tooth whitening products that were posted by “Moms”, and automatically enroll you into a monthly fee for various products. I have reviewed a couple of these sites to see if they decided to comply with the rules, and to what extent.
- http://jennys-whiteteeth.com/
10/19/2009 – Jenny has no reference on her Web site about being paid a commission for any sales. - http://www.whiten-teeth-instantly.com/liveleak/
10/19/2009 – A simple “Advertisement” listed on the top-right. Is that enough? - http://heatherswhiteteethblog.com/
10/19/2009 – A full set of terms and conditions at the bottom of the page, but I still don’t see anyting about being an affiliate, accepting a commission, or that the site is advertising.
There are tons of complaints out there from people who got “ripped off” by these sites because they didn’t read the full terms and conditions. Will they have legal action against the advertiser? From what I can tell, the FTC can impose fines of up to $11,000, and while that doesn’t do anything for the consumers who unknowingly signed up for the products, it may help prevent these tactics in the future.
I thought it would be interesting to see how these sites react, when their time is up.
