FTC Issues Guidance on Blogging-for-Pay, Testimonial Disclaimers, and Celebrity Endorsements in First Revision of Endorsement Guides in 29 Years - Press Room

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Zagreb, Croatia
10000
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Hogan Lovells Publications

"FTC Issues Guidance on Blogging-for-Pay, Testimonial Disclaimers, and Celebrity Endorsements in First Revision of Endorsement Guides in 29 Years." Privacy Update, Hogan & Hartson LLP, 02 November 2009

Christopher Wolf, Tulasi A. Leonard, Bret S. Cohen

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One of the privacy features of blogging is that bloggers can keep certain information about themselves private (while blogging on topics they choose). The FTC recently issued guidelines that will disallow bloggers from keeping private their affiliation to the makers of products receiving the bloggers’ endorsements. On October 5, the FTC issued the final revisions to its Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (“the Guides”), last revised in 1980, which are designed to assist businesses and others in conforming their endorsement and testimonial advertising practices to the requirements of Section 5 of the FTC Act, which prohibits unfair or deceptive acts or practices. The Guides are advisory in nature and reflect situations in which the FTC may exercise its prosecutorial discretion to enforce Section 5. The revisions made a number of changes to provide guidelines for modernized advertising practices, including blogging, and here we’ll highlight the most noteworthy changes.