FTC should mind its own business

As absurd as it may seem, the latest bureaucratic buffoonery aimed at regulating blogs should surprise no one. For years all branches of government have shown their ignorance in addressing fundamental aspects of the web, from antitrust lawsuits to obscenity cases, and this is just one more example.

To recap for those of you playing at home, the Federal Trade Commission is proposing guidelines that would hold bloggers accountable for fraudulent claims and disclosing conflicts of interest when writing about something that they might profit from.

In other words, the FTC wants to scrutinize blogs for doing exactly what magazines and newspapers have done for the last century or two.

What always seems to elude these debates is the fact that the medium at hand is simply an updated format of conveying information found in pulp or on the airwaves. News flash for the FTC: Newspaper editorial staffs derive some form of compensation in revenues from advertisers they routinely write about, whether they be restaurants, carmakers, or movie studios. So why don't their stories carry disclaimers every time one of these businesses is mentioned?

All this is painfully reminiscent of the way online journalists were viewed in the early days of the web. When we started up News.com at CNET in 1996, mainstream media condescendingly dismissed anything reported in digital form as incredible. We finally got over that, and now blogs--just another iteration of written content--are somehow being treated as an altogether new and dangerous medium.

"It's sort of a recognition that word-of-mouth marketing in whatever form, whether electronic or not, is a significant part of the marketing strategy of modern companies," Rich Cleland, assistant director in the FTC's division of advertising practices, told the Associated Press. "Because it's new, I think it is imperative that we provide some kind of guidance."

So what exactly is new, Rich? And when businesses persuade mainstream reporters to cover their products or services, while paying for advertising in their publications, that's not a "significant part of the marketing strategy of modern companies"?

What's truly different here isn't the medium, but the consumer. Rather than relying on traditional sources of information, people increasingly go to places like Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Amazon's reviews to get a smattering of views, and they most likely won't be shocked to learn that some are planted by interested parties.

Consumer attitudes have changed a bit since 1975--which, by the way, is the year that the FTC enacted the law on which the blogging rules are based. At some point, a modern definition of caveat emptor must become part of this conversation.

There's nothing wrong with suggesting full disclosure, which is a good idea for any medium as long as it's not a double standard. In fact, perhaps the most glaring omission in this whole discussion is that credibility is the true currency of content: Without it, no one will read anything you write for very long.

Here's a radical notion: Let the marketplace decide.

[Check out the Guhmshoo toon that originally accompanied this article]