Paid Tweeters Beware: The FTC is Watching

In 2000, when regulators at the Federal Trade Commission last took a look at how its consumer protection rules should be applied online, the internet lived almost exclusively in browser windows, social networks didn’t exist, and tweeting was what birds did on sunny afternoons.
So this year’s update to the agency’s guidelines, released today, had plenty of new ground to cover. How should advertising on mobile devices with tiny screens comply with the same requirements as pop-ups and web banners? When should an online shopper be given the disclaimers about the product they are checking out? And how should celebrity tweeters, often followed by millions, disclose if the things they are pushing out to their followers are ads?
You can read all the new guidelines here (PDF). But for now, here’s how the case of a celebrity endorsement tweet would need to be handled according to the new guidelines.

First, the FTC gave this example: fictional celebrity @JuliStarz (no, the account isn’t taken) posts a tweet praising pills from her sponsors at the fictional weight loss company Fat-away, which she says helped her shed some pounds.
http://blogs.wsj.com/corporate-intelligence/2013/03/12/paid-tweeters-beware-the-ftc-is-watching/