Identification of Paid Listings

FCC requirement?

[ptietze]

I thought I recalled an FCC requirement that paid SE listing be identified as such. The result was the "sponsored results" category on Yahoo, MSN and Google, and the "What is this" link.

I always wondered why PFI listing were not required to be identified. If Yahoo's Site Match is a combination of PFI and PPC, how can it be included with the "natural" listings without identification as a paid listing?

[2_much]

[help.yahoo.com...]

"Web Results may include links to sites that participate in the Overture Site Match™ or Inktomi Search Submit™ programs. Sites from both of these programs pay to be included in our search engine index, and those participating in Site Match also pay to be reviewed for relevance. "

[CathyM]

It's actually FTC, Federal Trade Commission. Here's the news article,
[computerworld.com...]

It says,
"Currently, the FTC letter is just a suggestion to search engines to take action. The agency has no plans at this time to single out specific sites for violations." This was July, 2002.

The actual letter is here,
[ftc.gov...]