this is life in austin & aspen

This is big news for the blogosphere: the Federal Trade Commission is looking into regulating bloggers. The proposed official guidelines are at: http://www.ftc.gov/os/2008/11/P034520endorsementguides.pdf. Basically, bloggers that don’t disclose they received freebies could become the target of an FTC investigation.

Historically, it’s been up to bloggers themselves to outline their own ethics codes (in their heads) and decide if they want to accept freebies, which often come with strings attached–the expectation that they’ll be written about. I first heard about the FTC’s moves on ReadWriteWeb, and then read the Associated Press article on the issue. Personally, I think it’s almost funny. I say almost funny because there are two notably curious things about the FTC potentially getting involved with regulating blogger content.

First, it soundly aligns bloggers with newspapers, as opposed to magazines–which also report some form of news.

See, in the newspaper world there exists an incredibly strong “separation of church and state,” that is, advertisers and editorial. Newspaper employees/reporters/staff are prohibited from taking anything that remotely resembles a free gift/sample/perk. It goes so far that I remember a Statesman staffer having to turn down a sailing trip with a friend she’d made through the paper because they’d met through the paper and she didn’t want to risk breaking the rules.

On the other hand, magazines embrace and welcome freebies. Companies mail packages of “stuff”–beauty products, books, wine, food, cleaning supplies, etc.–unsolicited to the magazine offices, and editors are free to take them, distribute them to interns, or keep them and raffle them off (or sell them, in Domino‘s case) later. I now buy and recommend Jacqua products to everyone I know because they mailed a giant package to a magazine I was working at. I never would have bought the buttercream frosting-scented lotion, but once I tried it, I couldn’t get enough.

Here at This is Life in Austin, I don’t have a problem accepting freebies–but I also feel absolutely no obligation to report on something I don’t like, or to hide the fact that I don’t like it. It hasn’t been a huge issue, as I don’t get a huge number of offers for free samples (where’s my free vacay?!), but I think part of that is that you can’t just mail something to my house. You (the marketer/PR firm) have to email me, ask if it’s okay and get my physical address, and THEN I’ll get a free thing. But as a “Food Blogger,” I get invited to plenty of events with free food or drink, and there was much debate a few months ago about this very topic amongst the Food Bloggers–many/most of whom don’t have formal journalism training.

My general policy is that if I enjoy a restaurant I visit at an event, I need to either disclose that I went for an event, or go back before I review it on the site. But this requires my discretion. So I’m going to a Sneak Peek of Transformers 2 tomorrow night. If I love the movie and blog about it, do I tell you I got to go to the Sneak because of the blog? No. Because it doesn’t matter. If I don’t like the movie, I won’t write about it. If I do like the movie, you should know. But if Chevy, who is sponsoring the event, gave me a new car and my review of the movie suddenly became 5-Star Glowing Positive Best Movie Ever because I want to keep Chevy happy, THAT is when there’s a problem with allowing me to use my own moral compass. And that’s what the FTC is looking for.

Back to my point, the second reason I said the FTC regulating blogs is “almost funny” is because the sheer number of blogs out there is so huge, how would they even know where to begin? How would they know when my review switched from Lyssa-uses-a-lot-of-exclamation-points-anyway to “5-Star Glowing Positive Best Movie Ever “? Who keeps the database of blogs? Who reads the blogs for got-a-freebie-but-didn’t-disclose-content? How often does a blogger have to post to get put on the watch list? The administration behind it is mind-boggling.

Lest I sound too critical, I think it’s absolutely crucial that guidelines like this exist. Most bloggers are clueless about the ethics behind accepting freebies, so by outlining the rules, the FTC is actually helping build a stronger foundation for bloggers that ups their credibility and in turn makes everyone’s lives easier. But guidelines existing is one thing, while FTC investigation is another. My question is thus: how will enforcement work?