Why sponsored Conversations are Payola 2.0

On Friday, I read an article on Poynter about how the FTC intends to start monitoring blogs for conflict of interest violations, or pay-for-play reviews. This has long been in place for magazines, newspapers, and broadcast media.

Have you ever seen an “advertorial” in print that looks like an article, but is clearly shilling exercise equipment or Shamwows? Usually, such an advertorial is accompanied by small print indicating that it is an “ADVERTISEMENT” or “SPECIAL ADVERTISEMENT INSERT”. This is because advertising is regulated by the FTC, with the interest of the consumer and with the intent of protecting against misleading claims.

Blogs are new territory, living on the frontier of the internet and Web 2.0. Like the Wild West’s cowboy law, interactions are often governed by implied codes of ethics, or unspoken tradition. Bloggers have posted several variations of the Ten Commandments or Declaration of Independence in an attempt to codify what has long been practiced. My favorite is still Aliza Sherman’s “10 Golden Rules of Social Media”, which I have in front of me every time I open WordPress. What’s missing, however, is some kind of regulatory body to enforce and protect us (the consumer public) from misleading snake oil salesmen.

Here are three reasons why I’m in favor of the FTC monitoring “sponsored conversations” for misconduct:

1. Sponsored posts are dishonest and manipulative. Consumers have now begun to rely on search engines and blogs for warnings of lemons and bad deals, or praise about the next greatest widget. This implicit trust is what undisclosed “sponsored conversations” preys on.
2. Sponsored posts are nothing short of blog spam. While Google’s Gmail gobbles spam for fun, there are no similar “spam filters” for blog posts that clog search engine results like they would our inbox. This is Payola 2.0.
3. If Alan Greenspan discovered that the “market cannot self-regulate”, we shouldn’t assume that bloggers will either. This is where the FTC should step in, if anything enforcing the long practiced tradition of respect on the web.