Government regulation of affiliate marketing

Do truth in advertising laws apply?

[gabby]

The Federal Trade Commission could have an interest in regulating affiliate marketing. Many affiliates blindly promote products they know nothing about, but they give the impression they are providing these recommendations from the perspective as a journalist. However, the reviews are usually far from independent reviews. Decisions are often made based on a particular companies payout percentage. The FTC may require affiliates to disclose the reviews are advertisements.

[hunderdown]

Is your statement an opinion or do you have a source that indicates the FTC is looking into this?

[hannamyluv]

To be perfectly honest, while you are technically correct, if things for affiliates follow the historical trend of the government and internet, A)They have many, many bigger fish to fry and B) they have to understand what an affiliate is first and C) the media will need to elevate the issue before they take notice.

Most gevernment agancies are years behind the actual problems on the internet. Identity theft has become the problem that it has because at first they did not understand how or what the problem was and thought that they had other problems to deal with that were bigger. But now (several years later) when the media has turned it into a center stage problem, they are thinking of how to deal with it.

As hunterdown said, if you have an article or source that supports that affiliates are even on the FTCs radar, I would be interested in reading it. Otherwise, it's not an issue yet.