New Rules for Bloggers

I've been writing for quite awhile about how communications law is evolving in the digital age. This area of communications law is still emerging and it will continue to emerge in the years to come.

Tim Arango writes in the New York Times about one new development that some bloggers will need to know about because it will be effective in a couple of months.

"On Monday, the F.T.C. said it would revise rules about endorsements and testimonials in advertising that had been in place since 1980," Arango writes. "The new regulations are aimed at the rapidly shifting new–media world and how advertisers are using bloggers and social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to pitch their wares."

If you write a blog and you review any product, you're going to have to disclose any gifts or payments you receive for your reviews starting Dec. 1.

I've been writing this blog for two years and two other blogs for a year. On a couple of occasions, people have contacted me about their products and asked me to review them on my blogs.

That isn't the purpose of my blogs, and I have responded with polite e–mails in which I have said, in effect, "Thanks, but no thanks." And that has pretty much been all there has been to it. The most I have been offered has been the products themselves — sunglasses, key chains, etc. — and I have turned those offers down.

At some point, though, I may receive a tempting offer. If I accept it — and it is after Dec. 1 — I will have to disclose the details.

This isn't something I anticipate. But I don't know what will happen in the future. And neither does anyone else.

So, if you write a blog, keep this new rule in mind. And keep an eye on Washington. I am certain that more changes are coming.