Whose blog is it, anyway?

by Dan Strum

It was interesting to read a recent news story that described the FTC taking action against a PR agency because employees of that agency were posting favorable blog reviews about products offered by that agency’s clients (see full story here).
The FTC considered that the agency was providing a commercial service, and that all employees are “agents” of the agency. It ruled the agency’s clients were effectively paying for any communication produced for the employee. With that in mind, the fact that employees were presenting themselves as unbiased consumers meant that they were engaged in deceptive advertising.

In some ways, this parallels FTC regulations regarding the “special advertising sections” we often see in magazines – editorial content produced for the purpose of promoting corporate views must be distinguished. However, this ruling gets complex when we think of the nature of blogging.

 

Imagine an individual blogger who writes about many things – the weather, activities, impressions, people and products. Imagine that this blogger works for a film distribution company and gets tickets through his office to see a new movie release. Imagine this blogger takes a hot date to that movie! Now imagine this blogger’s blog entry about the evening – anticipation, meeting, the movie, dinner, and ensuing romance. Is it relevant to publish a corporate disclaimer? And if he does publish a disclaimer in which the his company’s name is disclosed, would that not compel the blogger to adhere to his company’s corporate standards (be it from restricting his recommendation of restaurants or refraining from carnal discussion of romance)?

Full disclosure: I am a copywriter and project manager for Scogo Media, and director of the language school NY Smarts!