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Federal Trade Commission
16 CFR Part 255
If you are a Blogger and have Affiliates (everyone does including me), then you need to pay attention to this post. Effective December 1, 2009, the FTC put out new Rules & Regulations (16 CFR Part 255) regarding Compensation and Endorsements. This includes Bloggers, regardless of what your site may be about, if there is a possibility that you may be compensated, then you are required to make some type of disclosure.
For me, it was easy.....I work for a law firm so I simply had some checking done and adjusted my blog accordingly. Now, for the record, I am an Affiliate of a couple of things....Coupons.com for example. And also for the record, as of this date, I have not received a single penny from any of
the Affiliates. Why??? Honestly, I just don't make that much to have reached the threshold and because I honestly don't push them that much. If there is a coupon at Coupons.com that will make you a great deal on a product, then you bet I will tell you about it. But as I said, I haven't yet to reach the threshold for them ($100.00) since I have been consistently doing this blog (February, 2009). Quite frankly......it doesn't bother me a bit. If I ever get to the threshold, yes that would be a happy day, but that is not why I do this. I do this blog to help people save money on their groceries. That's my sole purpose.
Now....you will see from time to time that I will promote an e-book. Yes I am an affiliate for them. I happen to love e-books and that's why I joined them, no I haven't received any money from them and it would probably be years before I did. However, they do have some really great craft books from time to time so I pass them along for all of my crafty followers. You will also see me promote SwagBucks (Got knows that I love them). And yes, if you join them, I am suppose to make something, but I honestly have no idea and don't bother to log into my affiliate sites to see how I am doing. I like SwagBucks because I earn Swagbucks on the searches I do which I then turn around and turn into Amazon Gift Certificates to purchase food or household items that we use. So yes....I promote them because they can save you money. Less money out of your pocket is the goal and they create that possibility. No I haven't received any payments from them either. Have no idea what the threshold is.....not that important to me.
I do not do this blog to make money though I know that about 85% of the bloggers out there do. If they can make money from their site that's great and I'm all for, but that's not why I do this.
Anyway....to make a long story short, if you are a blogger, you can make things easy on yourself and put a general disclosure somewhere on your blog stating that you are a compensated affiliate. To me it would be a pain in the royal tush to think about every single time I do a post so I have taken the generalized view and added the phrase "Compensated Affiliate" at the bottom of my signature block which means it will show on every single post I do. I would have to say that 90% of the post that I do have no affiliation attached to them, but I would rather be safe than sorry so that's how I decided to handle it. And according to all of the research I have done on this, that simple phrase will satisfy the FTC new rules.
If you would like to see the new rule (Billing Code 6750-01S) grab yourself a cup of coffee, get a blanket and click here. It's 81 pages long in pdf format and yes I have read every page. Happy Blogging!!!
This post is part of the Becentsable Gathering
Compensated Affiliate
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