doesn't the new FTC regs cover affiliate marketing in general, and not just bloggers?

and…

I believe the new regulations state that you have to disclose ANY compensation for promoting a product or service, not just the financial ones.

Personally, I have just started to get the hang of affiliate marketing, and I am an honest affiliate marketer. I do not promote anything that I don't use myself or anything that I don't truly see a benefit of the product or service to the demographic that I am marketing to, and so I think the new FTC regulations.

Marketing honestly and ethically is hard enough, as it is far easier to generate a bigger income if morales, scruples and legalities don't stand in your way, and the last thing I, as an honest marketer needs, is some government organization penalizing the honest business individuals more than anybody else.

Yes, I do think that this will have a huge negative impact for the honest affiliate marketers, and most of it has to do with human physcology. Affiliate marketers may not want to hear this, but people in general, can't stand the thought of anybody making money, and saying “I will get a commission if you buy such and such” is almost a sure fire way of losing a sale.

To a lot of marketers, this probably doesn't make much sense, but like I said, it's human physchology, and physchology often doesn't make sense, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't happen.

Only time will tell, but I predict a very steep plummet in conversion rates for affiliate marketers.

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Clickbooth affiliate network

You hit the bigger problem for affiliates. This could kill a lot of programs on the sponsor level.

As to the rules for testimonials and endorsements, will any affiliate product's sales page survive?

Good question about whether an affiliate marketing association, with a solid, common-sense code of ethics will now be formed. I don't think it's ever too late for those in any field who value integrity to set themselves apart from the rest of the pack by letting the public know they are members of their field's most integrity-centered professional association. I hope someone reading this has the passion to create such an organization for this field. If so, I would be glad to advise them, having been the founding president of a nonprofit professional organization of helping professionals that has perhaps the field's most practical and respected code of ethics.

As to the recent corporate debacles, from my vantage point as an integrity specialist, the businesses and industries that have been guilty of the greatest amounts of greed and corruption consistently chose to sacrifice social responsibility for short-term profit. To me this is a perversion of capitalism, not true capitalism. It's true that some of these industries were highly regulated, as you point out. But, in my opinion those regulations did not even remotely begin to address the core ethical principles of self-responsibility, social responsibility and constitutional integrity. In other words regulations are not always about integrity, and this is why highly regulated industries often fall prey to greed and corruption despite being regulated.

Even more importantly, our culture's prevailing that profitability requires sacrificing integrity is the real culprit behind this debacle. We, especially in the United States, have for decades been pursuing a life fulfillment formula that is actually an unsustainable lie, as our current meltdown is demonstrating to those who can see. At the risk of sounding self-serving, I unmask that lie and provide a solution to it that anyone can implement, in my five-award-winning book, “The New IQ: How Integrity Intelligence Serves You, Your Relationships and Our World.”

Keep up the great work Ray,
David Gruder,
http://www.TheNewIQ.com

BTW, that $11000 fine is not true – http://www.amnavigator.com/blog/2009/10/07/ftc-...

I appreciate your comments. Well-reasoned and well-stated. I wonder if we will now see an affiliate marketing association – and if, as is so often the case, it will be tool little too late.

I think recent corporate debacles have proven that even the most regulated (and supposedly “legitimate”) businesses and industries seem vulnerable to greed and corruption (almost always in that order).

I mean, the article does mention “bloggers” not companies or review sites. Laws are meant to be interpreted literally. However, as Ray says… playing it safe is always the safest strategy