Just wondering if Crackberry is complying with the new Federal Trade Commission rules regarding the disclosure of "material connections" between product reviewers and the companies that make those products.
The new FTC rules, which are the first new ones in nearly 30 years and became effective in December of 2009, mandate that web site product reviewers disclose how they obtained the product or service, whether they were paid for the review or whether they got the product for free. They are especially directed a bloggers.
Since Crackberry is such a highly visible online presence (with 2 million users I believe?), I would think they'd be working on a way to comply because they would be a big target for fines by the federal government.
However, I haven't seen in the CB.com blogs anything about what "material connections" they have with the product manufacturers. Surely Crackberry is disclosing what it has to disclose under these new guidelines? Perhaps I'm missing them. :O
"The revised Guides also add new examples to illustrate the long standing principle that �material connections� (sometimes payments or free products) between advertisers and endorsers � connections that consumers would not expect � must be disclosed. These examples address what constitutes an endorsement when the message is conveyed by bloggers or other �word-of-mouth� marketers.
"The revised Guides specify that while decisions will be reached on a case-by-case basis, the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement. Thus, bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service."
I think it's common knowledge that once you start publishing reviews you start to get gifts. But I don't think a couple of free phones are going to change anybody's reviews. A couple of all expense paid trips to Las Vegas, who knows?
Um, it is a Blackberry centric website. If a consumer comes here and is surprised that they see a bias toward Blackberry devices then they are probably a bit on the slow side.
A Canadian business has no responsibility to abide by regulations that are targeted towards U.S. based organizations. If that were the case then every web based business would have to abide by the individual trade laws of EVERY country it was viewable from.
I think that's a different situation. Those guys were stealing peoples credit card numbers from the US and using them. It's not like Crackberry is stealing peoples credit card numbers or anything.
Although some of the servers may be in other territories I believe CrackBerry.com operates under the laws of Canada. That is certainly where many of the blogs are created and is the legal jurisdiction cited in http://crackberry.com/terms-and-conditions
There isn't much of a comparison here. You seem to be trying to equate the endorsements that CB.com gives to RIM to being the same as a bunch of scumbags that used predatory tactics to illegally scam peoples credit card info from them.
Did somebody at CB.com ruin your weekend or something?
Well, it doesn't matter what WE think, it matters what the FTC and the feds think.
Agreed. And your link tells me that the feds are actually doing their job and busting people committing crimes and stealing, not people writing about a phone or software and not stating the exact nature in which they received it.
Also, I seriously doubt 95% of their audience is US. Try like 60%, you've got the entire rest of the word.
I hate Americans that assume they're the center of the damn universe.
Very true, but when probaby 95% of your audience is in the US, the government could claim you "targeted your communication" to US residents.
This is what they do when they go after offshore gambling sites.
Yeah but I don't think I have ever seen any spam advertising (or any unsolicited messages whatsoever) from CB.com. Only stuff that I willingly signed up for. They are not a website where viewing is compulsory. People can voluntarily choose to view or not to view CB.com.
They aren't targeting a specific geographical area. It just so happens that a great deal of their viewership comes from the states. That is a distinction that I think would be pretty obvious.
Must mean they're not disclosing that they're getting paid for their "reviews."