Here’s a portion of the email that Stephen had sent me:

I don’t know if you heard about this, but the deadline is coming up:

http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/10/endortest.shtm

https://www.sitecompliant.com/

FTC has created rules and regulations will affect us.

FTC is known for going after people and giving them $30,000 fines just out of the blue, and they can touch anyone in the USA or anyone doing business with Americans, so that includes you.

Basically anytime a testimonial says: “This product is amazing…I made $___ in 10 days”, unless we have screen shot proof, we have to take those down.

You’ll want to look over your own sites too.

Scary, isn’t it? There are many other amendments included in the new regulations, but the way products are being advertised through testimonials and endorsements will change drastically.

He went on to say this:

Normally FTC goes after someone they believe has deceptive advertising and they have their eyes on internet marketers. They normally won’t tell you you need to fix this or that, they’ll just tell you to take your site down, basically shut you down.

Since I’m a non-US doing business online, I asked if this new ruling is limited to only American citizens. We dug further and…

FTC = US Gov’t, so they can touch anyone in the world.

Scary. I’ve spent the most of last night checking through my websites to remove some testimonials. In short:

-> if you have testimonials that mention results like “I made $5,000 in 10 days” it must be accompanied by proof from that testimonial writer, like income screen shot for example.

-> results are seen as “typical”. Of course, we are in the habit of practicing to say “results are NOT typical”, largely because as merchants we want to protect ourselves from gullible customers who think they can achieve the same results by doing nothing.

While I understand this new regulation was made to curb scam sites and con artists that can hide behind a fake name and conjure up fake testimonials – which is a good thing – unfortunately the honest marketers with genuine testimonials are also affected.

Here’s a better explanation and more light shed on this issue:

http://masscontrolsite.com/blog/?p=59

In the mean time, get your sites compliant with the new FTC rules. We’ve got less than one more day to go! I wish I’d posted this up earlier.

P.S. I’m not a lawyer. If you want legal advice you should seek a competent lawyer, preferably an Internet lawyer who is familiar with the FTC.

P.P.S. I also think that this new change, though may seem a dread for many honest marketers, will separate the true marketers from the rest of the ‘fake it till I make it’ crowd. Granted, we will have to work an extra mile or two harder but I think changes like this will rid of the in-genuine merchants.