If a mommy blogger who makes $0/month from her 'business' gets a free product to promote a product on a youtube video watched by 100 people, they have to disclose this. Even reviewers on amazon.
Yet Amazon charges for the 'Choice' wording without disclosing the financial side. And they are making way more, and therefore can be way more biased, than the mommy blogger who gets fined a few grand for not disclosing her endorsements.
More than just the monopoly situation, the extreme disparity in enforcement of rules, and the amount of fines as a percentage of yearly income, is quite galling.
Disclosure should apply across the board. I personally don't even agree with the disclosure rule, but if it's there, it should be for everyone under the same standard. That's actually literally the whole basis of the concept of rule of law.
> Does the FTC hold bloggers to a higher standard than reviewers for traditional media outlets?
> No. The FTC Act applies across the board. The issue is – and always has been – whether the audience understands the reviewer’s relationship to the company whose products are being recommended.
> If the audience understands the relationship, a disclosure isn’t needed
Surely the audience understands Amazon's relationship with... Amazon.
I'd suggest you fully read the text and enforcement you are quoting.
The FTC has a clear standard: Would the average person know that an endorsement was done for money.
Amazon's relationship... with is with it's sellers... is literally the topic of this whole post. I'm really not sure why you are bringing this up (amazon sometimes choosing it's own), other than to subtly defend something clear by muddling the waters.
To be clear: if I asked the average person whether an 'amazon preferred' product was a paid endorsement by the brand owner to amazon in the form of cash and revenue sharing... I'm sure they would say: "No, we didn't know that as being obvious'. That's the standard mommy bloggers are held to.
The thing is, Amazon will present the flimsy argument you brought up with a team of lawyers. The mommy blogger will just take the fine.
If you haven't dealt with the FTC, and seen the dirty sausage machine up close, I'd suggest you look into it before continuing on defending them.
"Mommy Bloggers Choice product is clearly labeled "Mommy Bloggers Choice', not customers choice or anything else.
It's not their fault that you ascribe weird motives instead of the obvious."
See? It works both ways. The FTC doesn't allow this argument from Mommy blogger; it isn't applied evenly. I'll remind you that one of the higher ideals of the US is the rule of law.
BTW, I'm not ascribing anything, this is about FTC standards. If you don't know what fines the FTC puts out, I'd kindly suggest you research before further 'theory commenting'.
Yet Amazon charges for the 'Choice' wording without disclosing the financial side. And they are making way more, and therefore can be way more biased, than the mommy blogger who gets fined a few grand for not disclosing her endorsements.
More than just the monopoly situation, the extreme disparity in enforcement of rules, and the amount of fines as a percentage of yearly income, is quite galling.