Last week, we reported that the Federal Trade Commission planned to fine bloggers up to $11,000 if they didn’t disclose anything that could be counted as an endorsement. Well, fear not, The Washington Post’s Cecilia Kang spoke with the FTC’s Richard Cleland and found that its threats were mostly hot air.
"We do not have authority to impose a fine for violation of the (FTC) Act," Cleland told Kang.
Cleland explained that enforcement will mostly be through warning letters, and if things get bad enough, it could be taken to court.
"I have to tell you that there is no realistic scenario that we get from here to there," Cleland said.
Meanwhile, the Electronic Freedom Foundation has predictably come out against the new, useless rules. In particular, the EFF takes exception to the fact that newspaper reporters are not covered under edict.
Cleland explained the FTC’s reasoning to blogger Edward Champion, “Most of the newspapers have very strict rules about that and on what happens to those products.”
Yeah, because newspaper reporters never violate their paper’s ethical standards. Neither do video game journalists for that matter. You truly have a dizzying intellect there, Dick.