Skip Oliva just tipped me off to this insanity. Under the guise of protecting Americans from unsound and amateur product advice (reviews, recommendations, etc.), the FTC wants take control of the blogosphere. This, of course, is a maneuver the government has long sought so it can effectively turn off the uncontrollable competition to benefit its favored participants in the corporate state. Alternative free media, and especially the community spontaneity of blogging, is a huge problem for government and its favored business alliances that benefit from laws, regulation, barriers to entry, etc. Here’s a snippet:
Existing FTC rules already ban deceptive and unfair business practices. The proposed guidelines aim to clarify the law and for the first time specifically include bloggers, defined loosely as anyone writing a personal journal online.
…If the guidelines are approved, bloggers would have to back up claims and disclose if they’re being compensated – the FTC doesn’t currently plan to specify how. The FTC could order violators to stop and pay restitution to customers, and it could ask the Justice Department to sue for civil penalties.
The article also notes that the FTC rules would also apply to Twitter messages. If you can stand to look at the madness, here are the proposed guidelines.
