The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has issued new regulations regarding blogger endorsements and word-of-mouth marketing campaigns. If a blogger is paid to do a review – either through money or product/service – said blogger must reveal said payment.

Ever been annoyed by posts in message boards that ended up being written by a company employee? The new guidelines crack down on such behavior as well.

The word-of-mouth guidelines don’t just extend to employees. They involve anyone who has signed up for a word-of-mouth marketing program, such as a Street Team.

To be clear, bloggers can post paid endorsements and people can post in message boards and join street teams or similar efforts. But if there is a relationship between marketer and company, it must be disclosed. If you don’t, get ready to pony up $11,000 when you’re caught.

How it must be disclosed was not defined by the FTC. But, if you’re a blogger, I recommend something like “Acme video game company sent me a free copy of this hot new game and here is my review.”

Consumers like it when they know the relationship you have with the product you’re pushing. If I had to guess, I’d say transparency begets loyalty.

However, the new guidelines opened up a can of grey areas the FTC needed to tackle. One such scenario is a blogger who already writes glowing reviews of Acme Video Game company. If all of a sudden, the blogger receives a free copy of a new video game and writes a review of the game, s/he needs to disclose the receipt of the game from Acme.

Another funky area of the new guidelines is the issue of liability if/when/should these regulations be enforced. If you’re an advertiser engaged in digital public relations, reaching out to bloggers or word-of-mouthers, you could be liable if the endorsers make false or misleading claims about your product/service.

The FTC said that they would consider reasonable effort on the part of the advertiser to keep the endorsers in line. But then they offered up this scenario:

A skin care products advertiser participates in a blog advertising service.
The service matches up advertisers with bloggers who will promote the advertiser’s
products on their personal blogs. The advertiser requests that a blogger try a new body
lotion and write a review of the product on her blog. Although the advertiser does not
make any specific claims about the lotion’s ability to cure skin conditions and the
blogger does not ask the advertiser whether there is substantiation for the claim, in her
review the blogger writes that the lotion cures eczema and recommends the product to
her blog readers who suffer from this condition. The advertiser is subject to liability for
misleading or unsubstantiated representations made through the blogger’s endorsement.

The blogger is also liable (in addition to any liability gained if the relationship was not disclosed). But the FTC says advertisers need to provide training and then keep a close eye on the ramblings of bloggers and other endorsers.

The guidelines should serve as a warning for companies hiring interns and other young people to head up your social media efforts. The FTC isn’t really proposing anything here that isn’t already frowned upon by the general public.

Sponsored blog posts are pretty easy to detect and kill reader loyalty. Many companies have had to repair damaged reputations after they engaged in blogging or forum posting efforts pretending to be random people when a PR effort was really transpiring.

Social media has always been best implemented under these guidelines unspoken rules. Use today’s news as a means of lining up your core social media values with how consumers truly wish to interact with your company.

The FCC will meet on Thursday, October 22, 2009 regarding the addition of two new net neutrality principles outlined by Chairman Julius Genachowski this past Monday.

Experts expect the measure to pass 3-2 with Genachowski’s vote joined by the two other Democrats on the Commission. The vote would issue the rules for public comment.

The new rules involve preventing internet providers from restricting access to sites. This is something carriers have considered in order to manage traffic on their networks.

Those who stand to lose the most are telecommunications companies who would see increased competition from the likes of Skype and Google Voice, because they would be forced to allow the programs to operate on their networks.

In the ongoing saga that is why Google Voice doesn’t have an app in the iTunes app store, Google’s perspective has been published publicly on the FCC website (pdf). Originally, portions of the letter were to remain confidential, but after Freedom of Information Act filings, it has been made public.

With the publishing, we’re learning that Google told the FCC that Apple did indeed reject the Google Voice and Google Latitude applications. Apple has maintained that they did not reject the apps.

The reason for the Google Voice app rejection was that the app duplicated core dialer functionality of the iPhone.

The Google Latitude app was rejected for three reasons

1. It could replace the preloaded Maps application on the iPhone
2. It would create confusion since Maps was a native app on the iPhone (isn’t this like #1?)
3. It would offer new features not present on the Maps application (oh, the horror!)

Google said there was no communication with AT&T on the matter. There were a series of phone calls, in-person meetings and emails between Google Senior VP of Engineering and Research Alan Eustace and Apple Senior VP of World Product Marketing Phil Schiller.