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 Forum index » Meta » General META Discussion
FTC Says Viral Marketing Relationships Must Be Disclosed
Moderators: imbri, ndemeter
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Phaedra
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 		FTC Says Viral Marketing Relationships Must Be Disclosed
Good, Bad, Ugly, Just Inconvenient, or Irrelevant to ARGs?
Kotaku article here.

In brief, the FTC says that in viral marketing, the relationship between the advertiser and the company must be disclosed.

I'm not sure what, exactly, this means for ARGs as marketing, but personally it would have spoiled some of my fun if the ILB website had had a disclaimer disclosing its relationship with Microsoft...
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 13, 2006 1:11 am
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SpaceBass
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 		Re: FTC Says Viral Marketing Relationships Must Be Disclosed
Good, Bad, Ugly, Just Inconvenient, or Irrelevant to ARGs?
Phaedra wrote:
In brief, the FTC says that in viral marketing, the relationship between the advertiser and the company must be disclosed.

From reading the Washington Post article linked to by Kotaku, this seems like an overly broad interpretation. I would prefer to see the actual statement from the FTC but the Post implies that this is only a clarification that a relationship must be disclosed in peer-to-peer advertising efforts where there is an endorsement of a product (under presumably false pretenses). Most promotional ARGs so far haven't been focused on endorsing anything; they usually run in complement to their product.

On the plus side, this should add some weight to the bit in the Terms of Service about advertising your own game on these boards, at least for those commercial efforts. Wink
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 13, 2006 1:39 am
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Phaedra
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 		Re: FTC Says Viral Marketing Relationships Must Be Disclosed
Good, Bad, Ugly, Just Inconvenient, or Irrelevant to ARGs?
Yeah, after reading the actual article rather than just the Kotaku post, they're aiming it at "sponsored consumers," not viral marketing as a whole.

But the article still doesn't really describe the scope of the opinion. Something like LCP or ILB is probably safe, as it's not endorsing a product or posing as a consumer.

Of course, Commercial Alert, IMO, tends to take rather extreme positions, and I'm not sure I trust a government agency to distinguish among the fine gradations of viral marketing, but right now it sounds like they're just aiming it at the far end of the spectrum.

Looking for the actual opinion....
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 13, 2006 9:44 am
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vpisteve
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 		Re: FTC Says Viral Marketing Relationships Must Be Disclosed
Good, Bad, Ugly, Just Inconvenient, or Irrelevant to ARGs?
Phaedra wrote:
Yeah, after reading the actual article rather than just the Kotaku post, they're aiming it at "sponsored consumers," not viral marketing as a whole.

<snip>

...I'm not sure I trust a government agency to distinguish among the fine gradations of viral marketing, but right now it sounds like they're just aiming it at the far end of the spectrum.


Yeah, I'd agree with this for sure. Right now they're aiming at instances where SHILLS pose as REAL PEOPLE, endorsing something while not giving full disclosure about their relationship with it. Hmm, that sounds familiar....

That being said, Phaedra's right. Hopefully this won't become a slippery slope where the intelligent, informed people at....well, you get my drift. Smile
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 13, 2006 1:52 pm
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