Can you trust that online review? FTC prepares to crack down on...

Savvy consumers often go online for independent consumer reviews of products and services, scouring through comments from everyday Joes and Janes to help them find a gem or shun a lemon.

[Conspiracy Man]

This is an insult. I do not write about how great Coca-Cola is or why it is so much better than Pepsi because I get paid. I don't have to be paid to want to tell everybody why Coca-Cole consistently beats Pepsi in blind taste tests or that Coke is just plain delicious and way more refreshing than Pepsi. Money should never be an issue when you are just telling the people why Coke is a delicious taste sensation and Pepsi is usually flat and their bottling and shipping methods leave so much to be desired in comparison with Coke.

[Voter]

Just wondering if the FTC will investigate newspapers (such as the Tribune) for endorsing Obama.

[Reverend Dewey Cox]

I'd guess they need to worry more about the IRS. Nothing is "free." It is all reportable income.

[Pearl]

I wish someone would offer me thousands of dollars for a 200 word post. I'd throw in 50 additional words for free!

[Doris M]

I'm all for a crackdown on people who pretend like they are giving independent advice when in reality they are getting kickbacks.

[Sam]

This is weird, did not realize that there were paid bloggers

[kazslo]

looks like yelp will get shut down soon then...

[She Who Must Not Be Named]

People, as far as I know at least on Yelp are not being paid.

(Now the terrifying thought that some people who post there may be paid has entered my head though...)

I was not aware either that bloggers were being given gifts and being paid. They really should be made to disclose that if they are.

[llll]

Finally the government is doing something right in today's digital world. Get these phonies off the internet! I want a review from a human being that isn't being paid like Mayor Daley.

[explorer]

YEAH!

[Mark Winshel]

While I am all for accuracy and full disclosure, still the assertion is truly absurd that the older traditional media, and such as for instance a lot of newspapers and especially many magazines, for decades have not already been participating in a game in which many advertisements are made to look like impartial reporting and legitiimate news stories.

And as far as various business interests controlling certain reporters and determining what they write, and even more importantly agree not to write about, Bill Veeck, in other words the guy who owned the White Sox in the fifties and early sixties and who then owned the team again in the 1970's, used to say that he could buy a reporter for a steak dinner. In other words, reporters are bought all the time by politicians and wealthy businessmen who slip them cash and/or buy them drinks and dinner, or invite them to their house for parties at which the food is deluxe and the atmosphere very enjoyable.

Mike Royko even wrote about the fact that he shocked his fellow reporters by refusing to attend a social get together hosted by a prominent politician (he also mentioned that his fellow reporters also thought that Royko was showing incredibly bad manners by turning the invitation), since he felt that if he got to know the various politicians too well it would affect his impartiality.

A few years ago one reporter for a major Northen California newspaper even wrote about the fact that after he wrote a favorable story about one of the major professional sports teams, the team's owner phoned him to ask his address so that he could send over a gift (if I remember correctly the offered gift was a basket of fruit), and also indicated that the same gift would be sent over on a continuing and weekly basis, and of course on the impliict understanding that the reporter's stories stayed favorable about the team and the owner.

And in many cities, those particular organized crime guys who have managed to keep a reputation as legitimate businessmen have done so due to slipping cash to certain reporters so that those reporters will make them look good.

But getting back specifically to the magazine business, many magazines have a policy in which if the XYZ corporation wants to run an advertisement that will look like an advertisement and state that it is an advertisment, the charge will be for example 20K, but if it wants the advertisement to instead look like a legitimate news story and NOT state that it is an ad, then the charge wil be few times as much, and such as for example 80K or 100K.

[helpus]

Why am I not getting kickbacks and gifts? That's bull crap. I want my piece of the pie!!!! I'd gladly act as an independent blogger.

[Coach Killer]

Believing everything you read on the internet would be like believing everything you hear in person. How many internet hoaxes and scams does it take before people wise up??

If anything believing what is on the internet is riskier as absolutely anyone could be writing reviews including the people that are actually selling the product. At least in person you actually see who is making an opinion.

[Chris R]

Whew! Another problem solved! Glad the FTC is on it. With all the blogs there are, now they can hire a million surfers to police the Internet for blogs that are secretly sponsored. Joblessness and the economy cured in one swell foop!

Perhaps they can do an equally good job at policing content and protecting us from false claims such as wonder diets and miracle cleaning products. You know, we never see those anywhere else!

Besides, anybody with half a brain takes blogs with a grain of salt. I mean, who would actually sit down to write a "gushing" review of something unless there was a reason?

[southsider]

this is great ... and as a result, look forward to seeing many fewer "positive" book reviews on Amazon as a result, as just one example of the heinous practice ... this has been a dirty little secret in the publishing world, particularly the professional and academic publishing network, for some time and it is finally coming to light. Like with drug marketing, money is the name of the game.

[Mark Winshel]

While we are on the subject of accuracy and full disclosure, let's have a law that politicians and lawyers will be required to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and that any who don't will be sent to prison.

[Jen]

Wait, there are people who accept a blog review as 100% fact? Seriously? There are people out there who don't realize you can't always trust what you read on a blog because you don't know who is their "sponsor"? Wow, that is a sad comment on society if that is the case. I cannot believe there are people out there who didn't know about this stuff.

[Homer]

Great idea. "Independent" bloggers should be forced to state clearly what they are receiving in return for their "opinions" and "reviews".
Agree totally with the poster above that the FTC needs to go after the diet advertisers, and the miracle cleaning products and many other TV adverts that are nothing more than blatant lies.
But hey, guess what? The revenue from those TV adverts goes to organizations. Organizations that have clout with the government (FTC included). Clout means they can pay off the government agencies to back off. Individual bloggers have no such clout, and are thus easy targets for the feds to look like they are protecting the public.
It's all a scam, but it's a start.

If there is one organization that nobody should EVER trust, it is the government. They lie and deceive on a scale the ad companies and bloggers can only aspire to.

[JMO]

Not just reviewers, I've noticed a lot of promotion content in Wikipedia lately. The same people who promise to push your company to the top of Google's search results also seem to be making a concerted effort to get your products included as part of an encyclopedic entry.

[Homer]

Mark Winshel wrote:

While we are on the subject of accuracy and full disclosure, let's have a law that politicians and lawyers will be required to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and that any who don't will be sent to prison.

Oh we can only dream. Government cracking down on false advertising has to be the ultimate irony.