New (Stupid) FTC Product Review Rules For Bloggers Now In Effect

In their typically shortsighted “wisdom”, the United States Federal Trade Commission is now enforcing a very arbitrary set of rules for bloggers concerning product reviews and the disclosure of any connections to companies providing products for review starting today.

The intention behind these rules is to increase transparency and the elimination of obvious paid reviews that attempt to sell products instead of providing actual information, but the way they want every blogger to do this is by placing a disclaimer at the beginning or end of each review, along with the value of the product or service being reviewed.

This is despite the acceptance of other forms of explicit endorsement in mainstream media without the same level of accountability being forced by the new rules.

FTC “Change You Shouldn’t Believe In” Boilerplate:

I get products and access to services from a lot of sources.

As a general rule, I only review products that companies or other industry insiders send or provide me with access to me directly. This makes sure everyone is on an even playing field, and I do not accept offers of additional payment, sponsored junkets or other gifts outside of what is provided for possible review in order to remain objective.

I believe that the purpose of reviewing products such as anime DVDs, manga and streaming services is not to tell consumers to go buy them, but to tell companies where consumers themselves want to see improvements in such products.

My current review policy already reflects this, but it seems the FTC does not trust bloggers to determine that for themselves and feels the need to add an additional layer of useless regulation that will invariably prove ineffective and unenforceable due to lack of funding and staff in its current form.