Comments on: Affiliate Marketing, WOMM, Buzz Marketing & Full Disclosure?

By: Terry

Terry — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 05:45:22 +0000

Good points Sapphire, but those offline companies aren’t ‘recommending’ each other or ‘pushing traffic’ to each other to secretly profit off that somehow or share in profits either. That’s where the problem is that the FTC wants to shut down (IMO).

For my examples I was thinking more ‘media world’ rather than commerce.

FCC Commissioner Says Broadcasting VNRs Without Disclosure May Violate Federal Law

Adelstein says, “There’s a federal law that requires that the public be informed about the source of who is behind what goes on broadcast media. Failure to disclose that to the public is a violation of federal law and in fact can be subject to criminal penalties of up to a year in jail.”

When CNN discloses that a company or business they just did a story on shares their parent company (Time Warner), do they do that because they’re being thorough or because it’s law? It’s a genuine question–I really don’t know media law .

Is blogging or online publishing defined as media, or commerce? Neither as far as I know–but the net is growing up. I’m sure it will be legally defined eventually.

By: Sapphire

Sapphire — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 04:02:54 +0000

Hmm. Some disclosure may be necessary to ensure fair trade, but if you go overboard, you can kill free trade.

Offline stores aren’t required to post on the front door that they are owned by the same parent company as three of their competitors, selling roughly the same stuff at roughly the same price. It’s a matter of public knowledge, but customers have to look for it. To have a similar level of disclosure for online marketers, you’d need a registry somewhere in which relationships are disclosed… but making everyone state it clearly on their site would be more like posting it on the store’s front door.

I don’t think the web should be held to a higher standard than offline stores are.

By: Steve Renner

Steve Renner — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 23:40:38 +0000

Hi Terry,
I am amazed that Affiliate Marketers get away with showing their checks and income statements. This will send you to jail in MLM.

BTW: Cool Blog!

Steve Renner

By: DP Dan

DP Dan — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 16:47:55 +0000

Terry, this has been brewing for awhile — particularly the more prevalent and hidden forms of non-cash influence you mentioned. Note that the FTC did mention such non-cash conflict (free product, free passes, affiliations/friends) as disclosable.

If you’re going to draft some sitewide disclosure anyway, check out http://www.disclosurepolicy.org/. There is even a DP Generator. It’s beta version, but gets you started with something you can edit for your own affiliations, practices and voice. Then link to it from your pages as “Disclosure Policy”.

Better safe than sorry…

By: Bonnie

Bonnie — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 16:34:42 +0000

Interesting… I think this is the beginning of new stuff on disclosures. Keep us posted.

My first thought as you brought up stuff about aff marketing is that Oh yeah–the little guys who aren’t making the BIG bucks and really aren’t doing anything wrong are the ones who will get pounded and the big marketers (the adsense page type stuff) will probably go unnoticed.