FTC Guidance Dramatically Impacts Endorsements and Testimonials

The new FTC guidance regarding the use of endorsements and testimonials in your product and service promotions can profoundly impact your business model.  It will serve you well to look into this in depth.

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, and am in no way either endorsing nor providing a testimonial regarding the new FTC guidance, nor is this pretending to be in any way a legal interpretation of the guidance.  To insure your personal compliance, I strongly recommend that you consult with an attorney who is expert in the interpretation and application of FTC regulations regarding your particular business.

The new FTC guidance release is excerpted below.  You can read the entire 80 or so pages of the Text of The Federal Register Notice here.

The apparent bottom line implications for network, internet  and affiliate marketers are that we now must be far more careful about the use of claims in our review endorsements and the testimonials we employ.  The use of testimonials are especially problematic.

For example, the simple use of  a “Results not Typical” disclaimer for testimonials no longer provides a “safe harbor” as noted in the 3rd paragraph of the release.  Now, if we employ testimonials claiming ‘not typical’ results, we must apparently also include a verifiable disclosure of exactly what is typical.   How are we supposed to know that?   Are testimonials no longer a viable promotional tool?

The 4th paragraph summarizes the new guidance on revealing the “material connections” between endorsers and advertisers.  Basically, any blogger or internet marketer must clearly reveal what and how they stand to gain from any endorsement and/or review of a product.   If you are an affiliate marketer, you must evidently be totally up front with that fact, making it very clear that you stand to profit monetarily in whatever way from your endorsement of a product.

So, I recommend that you take action now to consult with your attorney, if need be, and to thoroughly review your “terms of sale” and “disclaimer notices” to insure compliance.  The FTC is clearly not an agency you want to have to deal with.

FTC Guidance on Endorsements and Testimonials

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Filed under: Affiliate Marketing Tips • General

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