The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has released newguidelines aimed at those who market online and endorse products or services for a fee - better known as "affiliates."  The new rules go intoeffect on December 1, 2009 and carry fines for those who don’t followthem.

The basic idea behind the rules is to stop deceptive advertising.  The new guidelines are largely targeted toward bloggers or online affiliate marketers.  But, their are some additional groups offline that fall under the new regulations, too.

For example, up until now if you did a blog post reviewing a productand provided an affiliate link to that product, you didn’t have tostate your relationship with the product vendor (i.e. you didn’t haveto say you were an affiliate).

But with the new rules, because you are being compensated for yourreview of the product, you are considered a paid endorser and you haveto let people know this upfront…you have to disclose yourrelationship.  Not doing so is considered deceptive by the FTC andsubjects you to fines.

The new guidelines also contain changes that affect marketers ingeneral, depending upon their type of business.  For example, if adoctor endorses a product and is receiving a fee related to thesales for that product (a common practice with expert endorsements),that doctor’s relationship with the company promoting the product mustalso be disclosed.  In other words, people have to know that doctor isgetting a cut from every item that sells.

There’s actually much more to the guidelines and the FTC haspublished a rather lengthy explanation of what’s allowable and whatisn’t under the new rules.  If you do any type of marketing online,it’s definitely something you should review (perhaps even with anattorney).

Here is a link to the new FTC guidelines that go into effect December 1, 2009 (PDF file)

And here’s a link to the FTC’s press release on the subject