LEGAL INSIGHTS AND NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN INTERNET LAW & ONLINE BUSINESS

At the beginning of the month, online affiliate marketplace, Clickbank, changed its promotional guidelines. Over the past several months, the FTC has aggressively pursued online companies suspected of violating various Internet standards established by the commission. Acai berry weight loss and PayDay loan websites were the hardest hit and several online operators were court ordered to pay out millions of dollars in fines.
So, to avoid any legal battle with the FTC and other regulatory agencies, ClickBank executives decided to make affiliate marketing guidelines a bit more FTC-friendly.
Deceptive Marketing And The Internet
While deceptive marketing has long been a civil crime in [...]

Well that didn’t take long.  The FTC has settled with Reverb Communications, a public relations firm, for its questionable tactics in promoting a clients gaming applications in the Apple iTunes store.  According to the Complaint filed by the FTC, the firm posted fake reviews on iTunes saying how wonderful its clients products were, such as “One of the best!” “Amazing New game!”.  As one could guess, this violates some nifty little rules from the FTC…specifically those that require honest reviews from actual customers.  It takes no stretch of the imagination to determine that if you’re hired to do marketing for [...]