It sounds like this is all really aimed at the blogs taking advantage already. And that’s fine. But it seems like an awful lot of gray area is left over for us to untangle and sort through as we determine how it will realistically affect each of us. The FTC shouldn’t lay down one generalized law for all blogs – but I shudder to think of them coming up with some complex law of the land to cover every single variation of blog. They opened pandora’s box. They better know how to wrangle all that is spilling out now without shutting out a blogger’s best interests.

And the revisions leave a lot of room for the FTC to NOT fine someone who receives a pair of shoes and does a review. The point, the FTC revealed in the CNN interview, was to be able to go after bloggers who were repeatedly reported as violating the Guides. Because there is no way the FTC can monitor all the blogs. It’s a whistle-blower change that presumably empowers the public against bloggers who behave unethically.

My disappointment with the change is that it leaves untouched Product Placement advertising. So although if you have a long history of accepting products or payments from Coke to write positive reviews of Coke products you are subject to the Guides and need to disclose your material connection with Coke, if Coke just pays for product placement on your blog (absent anything looking like an objective evaluation) then that is just fine. So look for blog relationships to change even more as bloggers accept cash for product placements in their content, since the FTC has unequivocably said that they are not interested in changing the regulations surrounding product placement.