Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Personally, I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill and indulging in a little bit of uncharacteristic hyperbole for this website. And much as I love Download Squad, I doubt sites like yours are what the FTC is looking at.

Nobody from the Feds is going to come busting down your door just because you forgot to mention somebody gave you a free copy of some software to review.

And since you have such a succinct and clear policy on how you handle these things, all you'd need to do is post that on your 'About' link (if you're paranoid about it) and you'd be home free. The worst possible thing that could happen would be for you to receive a letter (don't hold your breath) from some apparatchik in the FTC asking you to do it differently.

The FTC has issued a set of guidelines. No new laws were passed.. Websites were always subject to such laws whether or not they knew or believed they were. So if nothing is any different today than it was yesterday, then why the FTC announcement?

Maybe it's best to think of it as an FYI from Uncle Sam.

I think the sole reason why the FTC issued this faux pronouncement was to send a message that the authorities intend to start enforcing some consumer protection laws that have been on the books for years. The only difference is that they are now specifically reminding the web community that it too is subject to these laws.

And being reminded is very different than being told you are "now subject" to regulation. And that's because the simple truth is that the web has always have been subject to regulation. It's just that up until now, nobody much cared. Still, it's important to remember that lack of enforcement doesn't automatically mean a law no longer applies.

Why this should come as a surprise is a mystery to me. But maybe that's because I never felt that the web would always somehow be magically exempt from rules that govern every other human activity.

I don't think of this as an imposition or a power grab. I think of it more as an acknowledgment that the blogosphere has reached a sufficient level of maturity and influence that some regulations now need to be enforced.

So don't look at it as a threat. View it as a sign that bloggers have finally made it into the big time.

And nothing proves you're being taken seriously more than when some federal regulatory agency gets assigned the task of keeping an eye on you.