Stealth Internet ads deserve scrutiny

You need a new Widget. So you consult friends who have Widgets. You check out the newspaper. You look through Consumer Reports. You read blogs. You take it all in.

Eventually, you lean toward buying a particular Widget based on the argument of a blogger who offers a passionate explanation of why no right-minded person would dare consider a Gadget instead.

But wait: You trust your friends. You think newspapers are fair brokers. You consider Consumer Reports above reproach. What about this blogger?

That's what the Federal Trade Commission would like to know.

"Many bloggers have accepted perks such as free laptops, trips to Europe, $500 gift cards or even thousands of dollars for a 200-word post," The Associated Press reported this week. "Bloggers vary in how they disclose such freebies, if they do so at all."

Exchanges of goods or money for positive reviews are positively forbidden by reputable magazines, newspapers and bloggers. But how can a reader tell the difference between ethical reviewers and their flexible counterparts?

Affiliation helps. Consumer Reports is so diligent that it accepts no advertising that might give the wrong impression. This paper, like others, has guidelines that bar staffers from accepting free stuff, meals or trips.

Rules in the online world, however, change constantly. Some reviewers are as adamant as Consumer Reports. Others have rules like ours. But some bloggers believe rules are for dinosaurs. And many depend on revenue from advertisers that pay for positive reviews.

Such arrangements have prompted the FTC, which also regulates advertising, to consider rules that would allow it to pursue bloggers for false claims or failing to disclose conflicts of interest. The prospect has the blogging world up in arms, claiming the government is trying to purge the Internet of speech it doesn't like.

Hardly.

As the Internet's content providers demand the respectability generally accorded other media, the FTC is simply holding them similarly responsible for what they say and why they say it. The AP put it this way: "As blogging rises in importance and sophistication, it has taken on characteristics of community journalism - but without consensus on the types of ethical practices typically found in traditional media."

Like any right protected by the Constitution, free speech has limits. Courts have, through the years, extended far fewer protections to so-called "commercial" speech, in which somebody is trying to sell you something. Ads designed to deceive customers are regularly restricted by the government.

Since government has the power to regulate commerce, the reasoning goes, it has the authority to regulate business speech. The right of Americans not to get cheated outweighs the right of businesses to say whatever they wish.

The FTC's guidelines would require bloggers to be transparent about their rules and their sponsors. The guidelines would ensure that key details - who bloggers are beholden to, and what conflicts they have - are revealed for all to see. Information, after all, wants to be free.

In tomorrow's Sunday Forum, two local bloggers offer their views on FTC regulation.