Dec 1st, FTC (Fuck This Chit)

Roundabout

Roundabout

Banned
Apr 20, 2009
3,500
125
0
So I asked the Pulse people what changes need to be made to any landing pages/farticles for Dec 1st for the FTC deadline. Their response was basically "if it's been approved by our legal team, it's ok" So I feel very happy knowing our fate is in the hands of their lawyers.

Same Q to AdSonar yielded a rep who wasn't even aware of the Dec 1st changes.

So I ask those doing media buys, what changes are you making to your LPs? Any? My two biggest concerns seem to be:

1. The FTC claim that the person(s) on your web page cannot be fictional at all. You can't just get away with saying at the bottom of the page "This story and/or people are fictional" etc.

2. The FTC claim that bogus testimonials cannot be used. Has anybody ever ran a successful farticle without testimonials? Is it possible?

So all we need to do is remove step 1 and step 2 and we're left with a blank web page.

Didn't someone say there was a warning first from the FTC? And what is the definition of an "incident"? e.g. the $16K fine per incident. Does this mean if you have 100 testimonials you're out 1.6mill?

Am I over-reacting here or is everybody kind of hanging off the edge of their seats waiting to see which sucker gets hooked first?
 


PM'ed you, Op.

For everyone else afaik 99% of Wickedfire is turning off all campaigns come Tuesday so don't forget to turn yours off too so you dont go to jail.
 
I'd expect the networks and advertisers to get involved in enforcing. The FTC will hold as many people culpable as they can, and if that means holding networks' and advertisers' feet to the fire to get publishers in line, they will.
 
I've done some more research here and discovered something very interesting.
I need someone like a Ruck or Mike or Steve to confirm.

Source:
http://www.squidoo.com/FTC-and-Affiliate-Marketers
"One of the first things Mary stated was that the Media has the information "all wrong!" The misconception has been that the new Guidelines are a new law, they aren't! Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act remains the same (the enforceable Act, the part that has punishment behind it) and these Guidelines were made to close some loop holes that allowed Advertisers to mislead consumers"

Note: The new Guidelines are not law, and have no fines attached to them! The Law is in Section 5; the one that can punish and fine, this is where people can get into trouble.
...
 
Yeah, there is no $11k or 15k per infraction rule/law. So don't worry about that.

My attorney who is very familiar with all this stuff said you would be fine to continue with a farticle as long as you disclose that certain things are fictional, etc.

Here's the most important thing. The FTC goes after companies that get a lot of complaints. Period. That is how they operate. They have always been, and always will be, understaffed and not have enough resources. They can't go after everyone, so they go after those companies that generate the most complaints.

As an affiliate with a flog, are people complaining about your flog to the FTC? No. Is the FTC going to go after you? Highly unlikely. The odds are 1000 to 1 that they will go after the advertiser behind your shady rebill offer before they go after you.

Business as usual for all the floggers ...
 
EWA will be mailing out a big compliance email that I've been writing explaining the new terms in lames terms. We do not police pages, but we need to protect ourselves.

I do have a feeling that they will be making an example out of people.
 
It will definitely be interesting to see how this all plays out. I bet there will be some examples made as well, but the internet is pretty vast. What percentage are they going to be able to come after?
 
dsiomtw said:
Yeah, there is no $11k or 15k per infraction rule/law. So don't worry about that.

My attorney who is very familiar with all this stuff said you would be fine to continue with a farticle as long as you disclose that certain things are fictional, etc.

Here's the most important thing. The FTC goes after companies that get a lot of complaints. Period. That is how they operate. They have always been, and always will be, understaffed and not have enough resources. They can't go after everyone, so they go after those companies that generate the most complaints.

As an affiliate with a flog, are people complaining about your flog to the FTC? No. Is the FTC going to go after you? Highly unlikely. The odds are 1000 to 1 that they will go after the advertiser behind your shady rebill offer before they go after you.

Business as usual for all the floggers ...
Click to expand...

RIP mikemakesmoney.com... :crap:
 
So Chedda really didn't get those 24s on his car from making monies online? His Bling Blog was a Bling Flog?
 
My questions this, why the hell are they going after affiliate marketers if MLM is a thousand times grimier and sketchier and more fun to take down...
 
Roundabout said:
So I asked the Pulse people what changes need to be made to any landing pages/farticles for Dec 1st for the FTC deadline. Their response was basically "if it's been approved by our legal team, it's ok" So I feel very happy knowing our fate is in the hands of their lawyers.

Same Q to AdSonar yielded a rep who wasn't even aware of the Dec 1st changes.
Click to expand...
You shouldn't be relying on a forum or a network's legal team to determine your course of action. If you make so much money from flogs or farticles that turning off landing pages with fake testimonials will have a large, adverse effect on your income, you're making enough money to afford a consultation with a lawyer with experience in FTC or online issues.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom