"Sorry I didn't tell any of you about the contest. I was trying to improve my chances of winning ;^) "

LOL! Glad you think so highly of us !!

My wife's got more than just my money ;^)

Hey remember the "Great Nikon Baby Incident"? When Nikon pissed off all the mommy bloggers because they held a cocktail party at a bar and they turned away the moms who brought their children! They wanted to start a boycott of Nikon.

http://nikonrumors.com/forum/topic.php?id=397#post-5030

Thought I had posted two links on "mommy blogs" - one on how to make money with them, and another from ad age talking about how much money was in them. Lots of eyeballs, replacing the role soap operas, sewing circles, and mommy magazines in one fell swoop. Wives control purse strings, yadda yadda yadda. Lots of money - one of the most lucrative forms of blog out there.

You'd be surprised Willis. I've been on one blog where she (mommy blogger) was having a photo contest and the prize was a new D5000!!! Sorry I didn't tell any of you about the contest. I was trying to improve my chances of winning ;^)

erm... Somehow I doubt the Mommy Bloggers are getting loads of free gear to review.

It is a great law to have gone into affect, and could have a positive impact on the information we use to make decisions. Many laws have changed since 911 making it far easier for the feds to enforce than we might think. All they have to do is follow the money trail which is not too difficult to do post 911 as compared to pre 911. It is some of these laws that the 911 conspiracy theorists point to justify their views. Mind you, I am not one of them though.

Well for an $11,000USD fine, I'm sure they will want to start going after the perpetrators and bring in the $$$. I think I'll go first just to get free publicity as the first blogger to get nailed by the new law ;^)

Funny you mention "mommy bloggers", for IIRC the hearings focused quite a bit on "mother and baby" blogs - and the growing trend of product placement in them. ;)
But, yea, enforcement will be hard, and auditing even harder (is there even a dime allotted to audits?)

Good idea on paper. Every blogger who writes reviews should have been revealing all along whether they got their test samples free, if they have a relationship with the company, etc.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

One potential hole in the guidelines is enforcement.

I can't see the feds going after a mommy blogger who gets 100 page views a day.

But there are some well-known bloggers I have always suspected are getting more than just free samples to test.

Basically the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) now requires "reviewers" of products online to disclose any payments or freebies they receive from companies to it's readers. This also includes any argeements (paid or not) to simply mention a company's name such as on Twitter. So I wonder how many of the sites we rely on will have to follow this rule. I think it's a good rule to play by.

http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2009/10/bloggers-face-11k-ftc-fines-for-not-disclosing-paid-endorsements.html