Electronic Retailer - September 2011 - 59

GUEST VIEWPOINT

BY PETER MARINELLO

Us and Them and Social Media Accountability
It seems like just yesterday that a few hundred of us were sitting in the Versailles Ballroom at the Hilton New Orleans Riverside Hotel during The Great Ideas Summit 2010 as David Vladeck, the director of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) Bureau of Consumer Protection, told us that the Commission was “facing issues that we could not have predicted even a few years ago…” and that “internet commerce has opened the door for new types of deceptive and unfair practices.” He promised that the FTC would be vigilant in keeping up with developing technology and ensuring that marketers would be held accountable for their actions no matter what medium they use to communicate. Well, almost a year and a half later, it’s safe to say that Vladeck wasn’t just doing some selling of his own that morning; rather, he provided us with a refreshingly candid glimpse of where advertising regulation was heading. Director Vladeck ’s comments were made on the heels of the FTC announcing its revised Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (known simply as The Guides) a few months earlier. The Guides provided examples about what constitutes an endorsement when the message is conveyed in new media by bloggers or other “word-ofmouth” marketers. Since then, we’ve seen the FTC a) announce proposed revisions to its Green Guides, which help marketers avoid making misleading environmental claims; b) provide additional clarity to its advertising substantiation requirements with the announcement of several high profile cases; c) make a decisive statement regarding the protection of consumers’ online privacy in a consent agreement with Google and Chitika earlier this year; and d) settle charges with a company that deceptively advertised its products through online affiliate marketers who falsely posed as ordinary consumers or independent reviewers. It should come as no surprise that the Commission recently announced that it is again directing its attention to internet advertising, social media and mobile marketing. The FTC is updating its Dot Com Disclosures: Information About Online Advertising, which advises businesses how federal law applies to advertising and sales on the internet. For those of you who may not be familiar with this FTC publication, here’s a little historical perspective. The FTC first released its Dot Com Disclosures in the spring of 2000 – just about the time we were starting to see a marked technological shift in the marketing and advertising habits of businesses and their affiliates. Could anyone at that time have predicted how savvy advertisers would be in positioning their products and cleverly utilizing the breadth

It will take a collaborative effort with the industry and self-regulatory bodies, such as the Electronic Retailing Self-Regulation Program, to creatively re-invent the traditional regulatory principles to keep up with the fast-paced and constantly evolving social media networks.
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September 2011 | electronicRETAILER
Electronic Retailer - September 2011

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