FTC Clamps Down on Website Sponsored Content

Advertising is about to change dramatically

[tangor]

The Federal Trade Commission has just released an Enforcement Policy Statement regarding the use of “Deceptively Formatted” ads. In doing so, it may have beheaded the concept of sponsored content advertising with a single stroke.

[breitbart.com...]

[tangor]

Bump. Perhaps should have posted in the Google forums? This is big stuff, kiddies.

[piatkow]

Is this doing more than bringing the web in line with established rules for print media?

[toidi]

Making rules is easy, enforcing them is another matter.

[bill]

The question then becomes how far the jurisdiction of the US FTC extends. Does this apply to all US hosted sites? Sites belonging to a US citizen? There are no laws like this in other territories. So what's to stop someone from hosting in Iceland, Russia or China to skirt these laws? Without some sort of internet-wide consensus I fear this will impact US sites but little else.

[tangor]

That may be true... I suspect that US sites and advertisers will be targeted by the FTC, regardless where they are hosted if they appear on USA computers, tablets and phones.

[bill]

As a consumer there are all sorts of benefits here in terms of ads displayed and how they're displayed. The SouthPark skit they feature hits the nail on the head in terms of how site visitors feel about the advertising on a lot of sites. Many feel it's overbearing, obtrusive, deceptive and invasive.

[jmccormac]

USA != World.

Regards...jmcc

[jmccormac]

Perhaps should have posted in the Google forums? This is big stuff, kiddies.

It could gut Google's Adsense model in that blending ads seems to be a big thing with a lot of sites. Are those helpful people in Google Adsense still advising people to drop the borders on their ads so that the Adsense ads blend in with the page?

Regards...jmcc

[jmccormac]

Given that Google is shifting towards being a pay for play "search" engine does this still have any validity or effect?
[ftc.gov...]

Regards...jmcc

[edited by: jmccormac at 5:27 pm (utc) on Dec 27, 2015]

[engine]

Did you read the PDF from the FTC? It's only 16-pages. [ftc.gov...]

It's about deceptive adverts, not about legitimately placed and labelled adverts. If your ad is correctly labelled, such as with AdSense, it should be fine. I can see how it'll affect some advertisers as there have been many more "deceptive" adverts, or sponsored entries, being placed in amongst editorial, and they are not labelled, or are made to look like editorial.

[jmccormac]

Yes, I did read it. And it is more comprehensive than you seem to think. This section, II Commission Policy on Deceptively Formatted Advertising, has the potential to hit PPC parking in that in trying to make PPC parked pages look less like PPC content and more like natural content, PPC links are mixed in with what appears to be natural content. You are probably less likely to see this kind of thing if you are working only on the web dev side of things. This kind of deceptive or cloaked advertising is one of the issues that crops up in web usage analysis and search engine development. The signatures and links for PPC are generally uniform but these cloaked advertising websites tend to obscure them or rewrite the feed links completely.

Look at the top results for any high value keyword search in Google. ('Web hosting' for example.) See that little "Ad" block that is blended so that the white text is hard to read on the orange/yellow background? There are four blended adverts at the top and only three organic SERPs at the bottom. Perhaps I need to get my eyes checked because that white sans serif font on the small orange/yellow background is very hard to read. But that is, I think, the intent of Google in that it pays lipservice to differentiating the ads from SERPs but does its best to both blend the adverts with the SERPS and push organic SERPs down the page.

Regards...jmcc

[tangor]

But that is, I think, the intent of Google in that it pays lipservice to differentiating the ads from SERPs but does its best to both blend the adverts with the SERPS and push organic SERPs down the page.

Makes no difference. Google will see no effect by this FTC ruling. They are not offering CONTENT with ADS. They are offering ADS and SERPS, which have already been ruled by several courts in the US and Germany (and several other countries, too, as I recall).

It will be the publishers who will get hammered by this ruling and they should, in my opinion. "Blenders" are a bane (see South Park if not actual complaints).

As we all know G does not offer "content" only access to content. We know that is a lie, see Knowledge Graph for an example, but in terms of legalese, G won't get hurt.

[jmccormac]

Google will get hurt financially. Ineffectual one-off token fines don't bother it but ongoing curtailment of advertising revenue will.

Regards...jmcc