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FTC - Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising

A place to debate issues or to rant about what's on your mind. In addition to discussions about historical fiction, books, the publishing industry, and history, discussions about current political, social, and religious issues and other topics are allowed, so those who are easily offended by certain topics may want to avoid such threads. Members are expected to keep the discussions friendly and polite and to avoid personal attacks on other members. The moderators reserve the right to shut down a thread without warning if they believe it necessary.
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diamondlil
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FTC - Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising

Post by diamondlil » Tue October 6th, 2009, 10:51 am

I will start off by saying there is no way that I am across all of this topic because my brain is far too full of new job information, but the Guidelines that have recently been released regarding the use of endorsements and testimonials in advertising are causing plenty of controversy. There has been considerable discussion on this in the book blogging community and on Twitter, and I am raising it here, because it could well affect us in terms of leaving comments or reviews about books where we have received review copies of from either publishers or authors directly, and could directly effect the way that our authors publicise their books.

This is an oversimplification, but basically as I understand it, if you have received something for free and you blog about it, leave a positive comment on someone else's blog, or on Twitter or Facebook, you must leave a disclaimer advising that you got the book from whoever.

It doesn't appear to be a problem if it is a negative review, but for a positive one it definitely is.

I think part of the aim of the legislation is to make it clearer to a reder if the particular review (ectc) that they are reading could have been influenced by the fact that the reviewer is in effect receiving payment in kind, but it does appear to go to far.

Interestingly enough, print reviews appear to be exempt because it is pretty much assumed that the reviewer would have received payment for their work.

Whilst I don't have an issue with disclosing where I got a book from (I already do this at the moment for transparency reasons) there are plenty of people who are pretty upset about it.

You can read the guide here, and there are plenty of posts around the place about it, including atDear Author, GalleyCat and many others.

What say you? Reasonable guidelines or overly draconian. Aimed at the big commercial blogs, but unduly affecting the little people? Apparently it could also impact on non US bloggers depending on where there servers are hosted.
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Misfit
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Post by Misfit » Tue October 6th, 2009, 12:12 pm

I have mixed feelings about this. I think it's a good idea for reviewers to state when a book was given to them by a publisher (heh, someone finally had the guts to give me one :) ) and most bloggers I've seen do that. Here's an interesting post with someone who had an interview with the FCC and Alyce from At Home With Books posts about it here.

It's pretty much a no-brainer that most bloggers do receive review copies. That said, these rules don't cover the Harriet Klausners (she is not the only book shill on Amazon), nor does it take into account the review websites as well as the blogs. Are those reviewers assumed to be paid reviewers and fall into the newspaper category? What about offshore bloggers like DL and FarmLane Books? The FCC can't really govern those can they?

As best as I understand, they're going to look closer at the sites with the Product link (i.e. that little Amazon market place thingie).

That said, it will be interesting to see what transpires of this and Klausner. She has quite a few book review blogs along with the websites she posts her stuff on. Anxiously awaiting how she deals with this little bomb.
Last edited by Misfit on Tue October 6th, 2009, 12:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by LoveHistory » Tue October 6th, 2009, 2:42 pm

I don't have any problem with people posting that they got a free copy either from the publisher or the author. I can't imagine people getting upset about that aspect. Of course I haven't read the whole document yet (it's still downloading, 81 pages!)

From what I have read so far it looks like the FTC is mainly concerned with making sure publishers and others aren't using the blogosphere for deceptive marketing practices (essentially buying good reviews). From page 5 at least it looks like most of the information is about the whole debate regarding the issue. Including the encroachment of regulatory activity into the blogpsphere, potentially infringing freedom of speech.

I'll have to save the file and come back to this discussion later.

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Post by diamondlil » Tue October 6th, 2009, 7:44 pm

Apparently there is some precedent for US law applying to people outside the US. I can't remember where I saw it, but basically because a Canadian blogger's site was hosted on a US site, it was deemed to be covered by US law. Probably would be covered in the blogger's own country as well.
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Post by Misfit » Tue October 6th, 2009, 8:09 pm

Jane at Dear Author got someone from the FTC on the phone today and she's got a new post up about it. Lol, I suppose when I review a book I got from the library I should use the link to the library's site instead of Amazon??? :p :o
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Post by Miss Moppet » Wed October 7th, 2009, 11:34 pm

Anyone who thinks that reviewers for print media don't get to keep their books should have a look at all the ARCs which have been unloaded in the bookshops round Charing Cross. I've got an ARC myself, bought from a second-hand bookseller.

This is super ridiculous. Suppose I had a blog and decided to put up a review of Forever Amber. Would I be obliged to disclose my ownership history of the book? It would read something like this:

I first read Forever Amber after borrowing a copy from Blackburn Library, Lancashire. To date I have bought three copies of the book, two of which are still in my possession. I also borrowed a copy on one occasion from the Barbican Library, London. I have never received a free copy of Forever Amber.

And don't let's get started with the history of my ownership of Gone with the Wind, a saga worthy of the novel itself.

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Post by Chatterbox » Thu October 8th, 2009, 3:22 am

I don't think it has anything to do with ownership history. It's about whether or not there is -- or may be perceived to be -- some kind of conflict of interest that that someone reading the review might believe biases the review. If Margaret Mitchell wasn't your college roommate; if the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce didn't give you a free copy, if, etc. etc. etc. You get the point, I'm sure.

My take on this comes from nearly 25 years as a professional journalist, working for news organizations that have draconian conflict of interest rules. (I've signed off on 12-page ethical guidelines re conflicts of interest in some cases...) The bottomline, in all these cases, according to all the ethics/newspaper ombudspeople I've ever dealt with, is the following question: If a reader was aware of this specific fact about your personal connection to an issue, to a story; your investment in a stock, etc., would even some of them be tempted to question your objectivity? If the answer is yes, then you must at least disclose what that conflict is. Hence you see financial journalists mentioning that they may have own some of the stocks they are discussing (I got around that by owning only mutual funds, where I have no discretionary power to buy or sell individual stocks). In some cases, I've known reporters switch beats because of conflicts. I have a close friend who works for a particular giant investment bank. I don't write about her institution as an institution; I don't write about the business line that she heads. My former employer hired a reporter to cover the private equity industry, discovered that her husband was a partner in a large private equity firm (which she hadn't disclosed to them!) and required her to change jobs. I think that was perfectly legit.

Now, the book reviewing arena. Given the avidity with which publishers and authors try to get reviewers to talk about their books, and given some of the recent payola scandals (here, you give this a five-star review, and this cool electronic gadget costing hundreds is yours for free), there is potential for abuse. This is a one-sentence disclosure that says "This review was written from an ARC provided by a publisher/the author." I'm not sure what the big deal is about this. As a reader, I really appreciate that any reviewer has taken the time to address this. I'm an informed reader, so I assume it's the case, and I'm reasonably confident that I can distinguish between a puff review and a real, thoughtful analysis of a book. But the idea of full disclosure is aimed not at the most ultra-critical and sophisticated consumer, but at the average consumer. Just because a book is a relatively minor purchase relative to, say, a mutual fund or stock, doesn't mean that people don't feel let down when they realize that a lot of the reviews on which they've based their decisions were probably written by friends/relatives of the author or by someone who got an ARC.

A lot of the people who object to this, point to the fact that in newspapers such a disclosure isn't required. True, and perhaps it could be (particularly on a website, where it would be easy to post a review policy -- we receive ARCs, which our reviewers use to review books and are/are not allowed to keep after the review.) At my former newspaper, we did not have the right to keep for our personal use any books we reviewed, for instance. (I used to contribute to special summer and winter reading sections.) But then, the item itself isn't the compensation -- the compensation is from the publisher, which insists on an independent review, will fire people violating ethics policies, and which compensates reviewers monetarily directly. That provides a whole set of disincentives to 'sell' your opinion on a book to the publisher that don't exist for bloggers or independent reviewers.

I'm currently ranked #150 or something like that as an Amazon reviewer. I get a lot of pitches to review items, and often when someone asks me to do this, and the book is something that interests me, my standard reply is that I will give it an independent review and that I will disclose that the book was provided to me free by the author or publisher. An amazing number of people actually back off at that point -- they don't want that disclosure there. That fact worries me -- it tells me that there is at least a hope in their minds of a quid pro quo. And if it's in their minds, then it's something I don't want to be doing.

I have a couple of policies about reviewing. I don't review books by people I know (which rules out two or three books a month.) If it's a bad review, they'll be peeved; if it's a great one, there is at least the perception of a conflict of interest. In one case, I broke that rule, and reviewed a book in galleys, and disclosed my connection with the individual. I received several e-mails from people thanking me for doing so. I'm about to review a self-published novel by a banker friend/source who I have known for nearly 15 years; I'll do the same with that book. My other policy is that if I do accept an ARC, I'll simply add a line to the bottom of the review saying the review was based on this. This is about to come up in the case of a non-fiction book I was pitched that looked interesting, and in the case of two books provided to me by my own publisher, which he wants me to review on Amazon. I don't see this as a big deal -- just a line giving people information that some may see as irrelevant but which others may be glad to have. When it comes to Amazon Vine, that disclosure is made for me, by Amazon's disclosure of the terms of the program. (I did have the extremely bizarre experience of being offered, via Vine, a copy of an investing book I had co-written -- how's that for a potential conflict of interest???)

I see no problem with a blanket disclosure, however, when it comes to bloggers. Something like: "It is routine publishing industry practice to provide advance reader copies free of charge to reviewers and bloggers so that they may read the book and prepare the review in a timely manner. Some or all of the reviews in this blog may have been written based on these ARCs." It's not about identifying the ownership history, just the potential conflicts that can -- and have -- lead to the over-the-top fawning reviews that we've all read and complained about here, as well as others that may or may not be biased.

I'm in no position to enforce my own views on others, nor do I wish to. But by the same token, I don't see a problem with what the FCC is doing, and, given the explosion of Internet-based reviewing sites, I think it could prove extremely helpful. If the sole review of a new local restaurant is written by the chef's mother, or they had a week of free food, yeah, I want to know about that. My need to know dissipates as I become more familiar with a particular reviewer (I can pretty much gauge where Misfit's tastes lie and where they will or won't overlap with my own, for instance) but cyber reviewing is a very crowded field with no barriers to entry and no code of ethics.

And yes, I'd apply the same standard to anyone reviewing my own books. If someone here wants a free copy of the Wall Street opus next June to review, I'd have no problem with them disclosing that (a) they knew me and (b) got a free copy. Maybe it will lead someone to discount a five-star review; but maybe the fact of the disclosure will make ten other people more comfortable that the reviewer really meant the five stars. Who can tell?

Sorry for the screed; this is something I happen to (obviously) have opinions about... :D

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Post by Divia » Thu October 8th, 2009, 9:53 am

I dunno I feel kinda picked on. Why are the rules different for us than for print? Do we have more clout and no one is telling us that. :p I usually say XYZ has given me a copy of ABC and then I review the book a month later. But Its stupid for me to go on other sites and have a disclosure. And how does one do that on twittery when you only write a sentence or two.

I find it interesting that it doesnt matter if the review is bad. Then you dont have to disclose you received a free copy. :rolleyes:
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Post by Misfit » Thu October 8th, 2009, 1:15 pm

An amazing number of people actually back off at that point -- they don't want that disclosure there. That fact worries me -- it tells me that there is at least a hope in their minds of a quid pro quo. And if it's in their minds, then it's something I don't want to be doing.
Heh, I was recently offered a book and let them know 1) I didn't pull punches when I didn't like the book and 2) the library was going to get it anyway so my heart wouldn't break if they said no thanks. They were fine with it and sent it along along.

I'm just going to play along with tongue in cheek and provide links to the library's site for any book I get from them, or PBS or something. I really don't have a problem except for the fact it doesn't address the book review websites, only blogs nor does it address the numerous shills on Amazon and B&N. I've learned to spot the "regulars" (when I see a romance with gushes from Harriet and one by the initials MR I know it's going to be a corker :o ), but the average Joe consumer does not and they still fall victim on occasion.
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Post by Chatterbox » Thu October 8th, 2009, 4:57 pm

Divia, it's not (necessarily) that bloggers have more clout; simply that there aren't an established set of ethical rules re reviewing accumulated over decades. The same problem affects online journalism, generally -- with the rise of blogging and other kinds of new media, journalists are tearing their hair out over people who view themselves as part of the media but who don't abide by long-established standards. One example, in the US, would be how a journalist represents him/herself: here, every media organization I know of would quickly fire someone who lied about who they are, who went in to a business and pretended to be from a government agency or an ordinary consumer, for instance. If you're asking questions as a journalist, there's an ethical obligation to disclose that's what you're doing. But bloggers often don't adhere to that rule. Imagine if someone asked you about work at a library; you assumed it was out of curiosity, and answered frankly, only to see your comments on the biggest library blog out there with your name attached, without your consent or even the knowledge that you had been 'interviewed'? Bloggers don't/can't fire or penalize themselves.

Re Twitter; I think that's largely irrelevant as it's very hard to write a review (as opposed to reading X and loving it) in 140 characters. It also doesn't stick around as long.

And I do think this could or should apply to any review site, from blogs to book review sites to Amazon or B&N. (I think it's interesting that Amazon now has this 'purchase verified" flag on reviews.... Let's see how many of HK's qualify!!! That's another effective way to address this, although I'm slightly irritated that it doesn't cover Amazon.co.uk purchases.) I also think it should cover all reviews, good or bad. (After all, if an author is your brother's ex-wife who lost custody of the kids because she's a bad mother and refuses to pay alimony, regardless of how good the book is, you're going to pan it, in all probability....)

I realize that this is never going to be perfect, and would rather that there were some other way to accomplish this other than via the FCC (the folks who prohibit 4-letter words that we all use in our daily lives routinely on the broadcast networks) instituting a top-down policy. But just this morning I heard more about some fake or paid-for reviews of medical devices on my local NPR station.

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