• internet
• regulation

More evidence that the Internet is not a regulation free zone:

For nearly three decades, the Federal Trade Commission’s rules regarding the relationships between advertisers and product reviewers and endorsers were deemed adequate. Then came the age of blogging and social media.

On Monday, the F.T.C. said it would revise rules about endorsements and testimonials in advertising that had been in place since 1980. 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.

Net neutrality debates (which I've written about previously) often devolve into screaming matches about the Internet being unregulated or unregulatable. These recent moves by the F.T.C. are evidence that regulation is not only possible but also adviasable in certain instances. As these technologies mature, it will be interesting to see how they're treated by regulators.

To be fair, many bloggers already offer full disclosure statements without regulatory prodding. But I don't think it's a bad idea to require such behavior.

• Jim Brown's blog
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