Blog Tipz

Product reviews have been a main source of income, in one way or another, for thousands of bloggers, for quite some time. Ideally, product reviews are complete and un-biased, covering all the positives and negatives of the product, rather than taking into account previous opinions of a company.

Through a new FTC Act, set to go into play on December 1st of this year, bloggers will be fined or given warnings when or if they publish a review of a “free” product without informing their audience/readers that it was paid for or given for free. Often, products that have been given to bloggers for free are given higher reviews than a product that was purchased, for obvious reasons.

Under this new act, the government hopes to increase transparency in blogging, although it is more of a way to crack down on people who may be providing false or fabricated information due to how they received the item or the amount of compensation that was given. Bloggers who do not comply with this new act will face warnings or be fined up to $11,000.

How to Avoid Being Fined – Disclose how you received the item and under what terms the item was given to you under. In other words, if you were given the review for free as a promotion, tell your readers. If you purchased it, tell your readers, and if you are simply rehashing information from another source, it would also be a good idea to link back to the article.

In all honesty, it is better to be safe than sorry, although it will be extremely difficult for the FTC to track millions of blogs and new posts as they are published each and every day.

More information can be found through the official release, otherwise you can read others’ thoughts at Read Write Web.