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Comment by apowell | Hacker News Reader

Disclosing a conflict of interest is always a good thing.

Agreed. But this isn't about disclosing a conflict of interest; this is about the creation of a federal regulation that is both vague and unnecessary.

Why is is challenging for a blogger to disclose that his "review" was preceded by a payment from the company whose product he is reviewing?

As I stated earlier, it's a hurdle just to become familiar with the regulations that exist and confirm that you are in compliance. Imagine that a person doesn't blog today but wants to get into it - that person may be deterred by knowing that there is a world of federal regulation out there that they don't understand.

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"world of federal regulations" ?

if you take money from a company and review their products, disclose the conflict of interest. This is fairly simple. Most new bloggers can understand this and most new bloggers aren't going to get paid for writing reviews anyway.

Why do you see this as a problem ?

Many new bloggers (or social media participants) may not know that the federal government has created regulations that pertain to what they do. And if they did know that the regulations exist, they may not know how to find those regulations, and they may not know how to be confident they comply (see my other message speculating on what sort of disclosure is necessary - do you really want to be the one in court arguing that your disclosure was prominent enough?). Creating this regulation adds a layer of complexity that I don't think is necessary.

Perhaps we have fundamentally different views on the role of the government in regulating speech. I agree that disclosing conflicts is desirable, and I think that people should behave ethically when reviewing products. However, I'm not sure why you feel government intervention is necessary here.

Commercial speech is already regulated. (unless you're also suggesting that all commercial speech be unregulated) It is inconsistent for you to suggest that bloggers should be given an exception.

Anyway, I'm not worried about the regulation bogey-man here. New bloggers aren't going to be paid by companies to promote their products. If they are savvy enough to get a paid contract, it shouldn't be too difficult for them to publicly disclose their conflict of interest.

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