The FTC recently released new rules at the end of 2009 in an effort to police businesses using social media or online ads that appear to be created by a user not affiliated with thier company. Overall, the FTC is trying to enforce that all blogs, social media, advertisements, reviews and testimonials that promote a brand or company must disclose within their advertisement, blog, or profile that they are being paid or receiving compensation from that company.

If you are paying or in anyway compensating an advertiser or third party contractor to write blogs, reviews, or promote your brand or company online, it needs to be disclosed to readers.

The FTC is enforcing this by issuing steep fines to those who do not heed their new rule. It will be almost impossible for the FTC to enforce this rule for all advertisers due to the amount of online content, however we expect them to focus on SPAM sites and national brands that use bloggers and social media contractors to post positive reviews about their products or services. We will just have to wait and see how serious the FTC is about enforcing these new rules and how the Internet marketing will adapt to the new disclosure requirements.

Want to read more? Click here to read Attorney Mike Young's blog post about the FTC rules and download his guide to the FTC rules and regulations on affiliate marketing.