More on why the FTC shouldn't regulate blogs

We'd previously reported on the FTC's decision to regulate blogs by requiring authors to disclose any monetary or in-kind gifts received in exchange for favorable product reviews as well as criticism by at least one academic publisher of this new policy.  Joining the criticism is this New York Times editorial in which the author argues the FTC policy is misguided government overreaching:

Now that we are all on Facebook, we are each a sole proprietor. We are all perpetrators and victims of promotion (for the most part that promotion is tediously of the “self” variety). That every consumer is now a retailer is capitalism’s ultimate and most logical evolution. Regulating every last one of us in our tiny, imaginary boardrooms (in my mind, mine is mahogany-paneled and has a Häagen-Dasz fountain) is as ludicrous as not skipping past the advertisements on one’s DVR.

Stealth marketing, direct advertisement and product placement work only on the clueless, and our immersive, hippo-like wallowing in the marketplace serves only to make us resistant to these viral contagions. Because the more we are sold to — and, believe it, we are being pitched every minute — the more immune we are to it all.

You can read the rest of the editorial here.

(jbl)