There is also the authority and credibility factor. For example if a blogger review a product he has not even tested. If he has some luck and the product is a superhit, thats great. But what if they product or service is found to be scam some months later and that many of the readers who read on the blogger blog and went to try it ended up as being the poor victims?

The blogger will lose his credibility as he has advertised a scam product.
Kurt Avish´s last blog ..Earthquake Near Mauritius – Magnitude 6.0

At the same time, bloggers – including some very high profile ones – have accepted money and done “reviews” that were some of the most dishonest posts ever written. Moreover, when questioned about this, they defended the practice like as if they had died for our sins. I wrote about this a while ago:

http://www.ashokkarra.com/2007/06/on-blogging-having-an-opinion-and-the-quality-and-trustworthiness-of-your-voice/

I don’t like the idea that the federal government has to get involved in order to demonstrate to people the most basic sense of morality. But if it has to be that way, it has to be that way perhaps.
ashok´s last blog ..On Robert Bly’s “Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter”

I’ve done bloody hundreds of paid reviews and I’m pretty sure I’ve never come out and said that a particular product is great unless I knew something about it.

The problem is that most of the time advertisers do not want you to disclose that it is a paid post. Now it seems they have to so it is a good thing.

One question though. Does the FTC have any power outside of the US?
Sire@WassupBlog´s last blog ..A Poem For Halloween The Night Of Frights

Well I guess this will make it less frustrating next time I try to choose web hosting or a laptop.

But at what point do you have to disclose something? I’ve never written a paid review, but if I’ve written about something I thought was good, I’ve often joined its affiliate program and put the links in. So does that then become a ‘paid review’ for the purpose of this law?

I can feel some extra work coming on…
annabelt – Ebusiness Technology´s last blog ..Back to your Desks, Peasants!

Meanwhile, publishers outside the U.S. won’t have to disclose anything, and they’ll end up looking like the legit ones. If this is taken too seriously, we won’t accomplish much but outsourcing the entire web publishing/marketing sector to other nations.

I’m kind of worried that this effects me directly. I review and recommend some products I use personally, but how am I supposed to know if my experience is “typical?” What if I love the host I’m using, but someone spilled coffee on the server next to the one my sites are on?

Between the global nature of the web, the impossible problem of actually tracking every financial relationship of every blog, and the way legit bloggers might get swept into the disclaimer pile, I don’t see any real good coming out of this. Then again, I have no financial incentive to promote a broad interpretation of the rules – so as far as I’m concerned, this is only aimed at obvious scammers and the rest of us should just ignore it.

Really though, this kind of blunt & clumsy government activity scares the crap out of me.
John@Web Biz´s last blog ..SideWiki – Hardly Worth Writing About

I simply does not get along with this idea of paid review. I do promote affiliate products or at time include ads in my posts but not paid reviews.

As for the affiliate products, I often try to include it whenever it can be helpful to someone. At times some articles can also look like paid reviews even though it is not..and when I feel am writing something (eg launch of a new product that look cool)… I’ll either mention from where I read it or simple say if I was offered a trial to test.

And if something sucks…I tell it frankly whether the readers like it or not lol.
Kurt Avish´s last blog ..Teacup Pigs For Sale