The U.S Federal Trade Commission has passed a new law, under which any an all bloggers, media outlets, Twitterers etc. will have to declare and add a footnote at the end of the article, providing the information on the product and the company that gave them the freebie. The FTC hopes to broaden the horizon of consumer privacy with this move and bring in more transparency with the online reviews and posts.

According to Mary Engle (Associate Director of consumer protection, FTC),

“Endorsements in print ads or on television are clear, because it is obviously the company’s advertisement. It became very clear to us when we began our regular periodic review of guides in 2007 that because of all the social media going on we’d need to update them.’’

This latest guideline issued by FTC is believed to be aimed at creating a barrier between the a blogger’s personal usage opinion of the product and that of a paid writer who would write good and wonderful things about the product in order to advertise it. However, good news for the individual bloggers is that, the FTC won’t be monitoring each and every blog, and as a matter of fact it could be virtually impossible to keep a tab on all the blogs. Therefore, only companies and advertisers that own a blog site or advertise their products via social networks or online retail chains by the means of user reviews, that are often even fabricated.

Via Boston.com.