I know it seems like I have missed the boat on this one. After all, everyone has been talking about the new FTC guidelines and the ways they affect product owners and affiliates alike for some time now. I have stayed very still and silent on the subject, and there is a good reason for that.

 

1. I am not a lawyer and neither are half the people debating the new rules. This becomes a problem as subjective opinion is not a good way of interpreting the law.

 

2. This has not been an issue that affects me. I haven’t been selling as an affiliate lately, and when I do, I don’t make outrageous promises or claims. Honesty is always the best polciy.

 

But these regulations are a concern for a great deal of Internet marketers out there and it has serious implications. However, from my reading on the subject and after talking to a lot of online business people about it, two things seem important to bare in mind:

1. Generally speaking, the FTC do not come after you if you are a small fish. They go after big guys doing the big numbers, and they make an example of them.

2. Generally speaking again, you have to have a serious number of complaints being made about you by unhappy customers to come up on the FTC radar. That alone should give you a reason to treat your customers like gold!

 

So there has been a lot of talk about what the new guidelines mean, and how they will change the business etc. My opinion of it is this:

 

This has been coming for a loonng time now, and it’s been coming because of the sheer amount of liars, cheats and borderline thieves there are on the Internet. That is a bold and big claim to make, and for the sake of legality, I won’t name any names, but I have been on webmaster forums where I have watched some one show everyone how they built a niche website, and created their own fake testimonial videos lying about the apparent success of the product. Amusingly, this was a product about getting in better physical shape, and the product creator was stood on this video making this fake testiomonial with his shirt off. What was immediately clear from this was the guy had never seen a gym, let alone his own product!

 

I have seen marketers use fake income claims, screen shots and mis-information to give the perception that doing a lot better than they actually are. I know people being chased for large bills from utility providers who are claiming on videos, salespages and websites that they are making north of $20,000 a month. These people often use all kinds of twisted logic to justify this position, I am not sure there is a reasonable, rational or logical justification for it though.

 

The truth is, a lot of this industry has prospered on the back of lies and deception and it is frequently left unchallenged. Swathes of people so desperately WANT to believe that some of the wild claims are true, and thus they take a leap of faith and consistently fail to apply logic, critical thinking, or due diligence to their thought process on their purchase decision.

 

I guess I am having a “grouchy” day, but I have seen enough in the industry to know, that there is such little regulation, a lot of bad people are getting away with a lot of bad things and it really must stop and perhaps, the FTC’s actions will go some way in helping put an end to some of this nonsense.