By: Brian J. Meli
Last month, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued updated disclosure guidelines for online advertisers to help ensure compliance with truth in advertising laws. The new guide, .com Disclosures – How to Make Effective Disclosures in Digital Advertising, is an overdue update to the agency’s initial Dot Com Disclosures guide, disseminated well before smartphones, tablets and social media came onto the scene. While advertising disclosures are, by their fact-dependent nature, hard to standardize, the new guide does an adequate job of clarifying what is and is not acceptable given all the new ways advertisers are using the Internet. The following is an overview of some of the things you need to know before advertising online.