FTC 2011 Crackdown and You
As many of you have been made aware, either through forums, word of mouth, or having it personally affect your business, the FTC recently dropped bombs on about 10 affiliates and a large affiliate network (Copeac). While the outcomes of these legal actions are uncertain, many are left wondering what they can do to protect themselves.
Earlier today, Jason (smaxor) of Ads4Dough hosted a webinar with Rob Berkowitz of Coast Law Group and Tom Cohn of Vennable, LLP. Both are attorneys with much experience in the laws of Affiliate Marketing and online and offline advertising in general. Tom actually worked at the FTC on related cases for 17 years. Obviously these are two guys who you would want information from regarding FTC regulations concerning the current situation.
The webinar focused on questions regarding 3 issues:
- News Sites / Advertorials, what is or isn’t considered compliant.
- International Affiliates advertising in the US and US Affiliates advertising Internationally
- Strategies to Mitigate Liability (how to cover your ass)
The webinar was an hour long, and ALL of it is worth listening two, maybe twice, but here are the main points presented as you listen along for yourself:
News/Advertorials
The FTC went after Affiliates who made false/unsubstantiated claims that certain supplements (acai) would provide substantial weight loss. The content was deceptive because it claimed to be an objective news report but wasn’t, claimed to have independent tests, didn’t, comments claimed to be independent consumers, weren’t. The affiliates did not disclose their financial relationship to advertisers.
What can you do to be compliant? Stop making fake news stories. Little technical details like if you have an asterisk with disclosures don’t matter much. What matters is if the FTC thinks the consumer will think it’s a news article when it’s not a news article. Same goes for fake blogs, fake anything. If it’s fake, don’t run it.
International Affiliates/International Campaigns
The general consensus of the lawyers on the call was, the US can still try to prosecute people outside the US who are advertising in the US, but it very rarely happens. Same goes for affiliates in the US advertising outside the US. But it could happen in the future.
The reality of the situation seems to be, international affiliates don’t really get touched, and running international ad campaigns instead of inside the US is much less risky if you insist on breaking FTC guidelines.
Liability Mitigation
Make sure you set up a proper LLC or Corp with proper book keeping, and try to stay as compliant as possible with regulations. Consider moving to Moldova.
Listen to the Webinar
Keep it real.
Thanks for posting this – I missed the earlier one.
Why Moldova?
Listen to the webinar haha
Will do!
Going to moldova?
Haha interesting.
I was born there, and didn’t think people knew that country existed as I keep telling people I was born there.
Hope you enjoy it there.
WB. I was beginning to think you had moved on.
Nope
Hey look at that – a nickycakes post!
Uber-style comeback
Uber never made a comeback. I actually work still :p
Thanks man. My laptop crashed a few hours before the webinar and it’s taken me 11+ hours to get it back up and running. You’re a lifesaver.
I hear Moldava is cold during the winter and my nuts can’t take it. Caymen Islands is more my style.
I guess that any promotion, marketing and advertising should minimize deception or eliminate it.
It also looks like the FTC is going after the big fish to set an example for the small fries hoping that all will fall in line.
Nope. They did that before and it didnt work. Some of these guys are not big
i am an international affiliate currently living in a country the rest of the world considers as third world. There are some benefits to living here after all
Holy shit.
Nicky cakes is still alive.
Good to see a post., its been a while
thx for the share; listening to it now
Welcome to Moldova
Having problems downloading the webinar.
Good to see you post again
Sorry, fixed
Cakes, I thought you were dead bro! You need to post more often.
If you need to break the law to make a living you may as well rob a bank – at least you will know whether you got caught sooner.
Nice to see you posting again Nicky
Love the first image.
BRB, moving to Moldova.
Interesting, I just started to run offers from copeac.
Will dload the webinar, now!
Moldova, Caymens or Virgin Islands…
Virgin Islands
Going LLC is a step I’ve been meaning to take for awhile now. Guess I’d better get it in gear.
Good thing I'm from Canada, lol
Good thing I’m from Canada, lol
WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS GUY DOING WITH HIS LIFE?
ACAI IS DEAD, BRO.
KKR!
Nicky, I just talked to someone at ASW who got an FTC takedown notice via email. He looked at the headers and saw that the IP was coming from San Francisco.
He thinks it is one of his competitors that is just trying to scare him into shutting down. The competition in some of the profitable niches is getting crazy nowadays.