Influencer Marketing

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In the last few years, as advertising has followed consumers from legacy media such as television to online video and social media platforms, the Federal Trade Commission has been attempting to ensure that participants in this new advertising ecosystem understand the importance of complying with the FTC’s “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising,” or the endorsement guides. The endorsement guides require advertisers and endorsers (also referred to as influencers) to, among other things, clearly and conspicuously disclose when the advertiser has provided an endorser with any type of compensation in exchange for an endorsement.

A failure to make appropriate disclosures may be a violation of Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, which prohibits unfair or deceptive acts or practices. In recent enforcement actions, press releases, guidance, closing letters and letters sent directly to endorsers (including prominent public figures), the FTC has made clear its belief that: (1) appropriate disclosures by influencers are essential to protecting consumers; and (2) in too many instances, such disclosures are absent from celebrity or other influencer endorsements. Continue Reading The FTC’s Quest for Better Influencer Disclosures

Last year we covered a wide range of online legal and business subjects intended for readers ranging from Internet entrepreneurs to social media marketers, from online shoppers to e-tailers, from networkers to influencers (and the brands that pay them).

The topics of our blog posts covered a myriad of cutting-edge subjects, including a new federal law limiting a business’s ability to stop patrons from posting negative online reviews and a court opinion that gave online retailers some cause for celebration.

As interesting as those topics are, they weren’t the subjects of Socially Aware’s most widely read articles from last year. Here are the most popular posts that appeared on Socially Aware in 2017.

  1. Second Circuit Clarifies “Repeat Infringer” Policy Requirement for DMCA Copyright Safe Harbors
  2. N.Y.’s New Cybersecurity Regulations: What Financial Services Companies Need to Know
  3. The Hague District Court’s WhatsApp Decision Creates Concerns for Mobile App Developers
  4. Google Ordered to Comply with Warrant for Foreign-Stored User Data
  5. Limiting Statutory Damages in Internet Copyright Cases
  6. Court Orders Google to Turn Over Foreign-Stored Data
  7. Zazzle Fizzles: Website Operator Denied Copyright Safe Harbor Protection for Its Sale of Physical Products Featuring User-Generated Images
  8. Delaware Paves the Way for Blockchain Technology
  9. Brands Beware: FTC Continues Campaign on Social Media Influencer Disclosures
  10. FTC Report Reinforces the Rules for Cross-Device Tracking

As Socially Aware readers know, social media is transforming the way companies interact with consumers. Learn how to make the most of these online opportunities while minimizing your company’s legal risks at Practising Law Institute’s (PLI) 2018 Social Media conference, to be held in San Francisco on Thursday, February 1st, and in New York City on Wednesday, February 14th; both events will be webcasted. The conference will be chaired by Socially Aware co-editor John Delaney, and our other co-editor, Aaron Rubin, will also be presenting at the event.

Topics to be addressed will include:

  • The new business opportunities—and legal risks—that social media is providing for businesses
  • What every company should know about online contractual eco-systems
  • How to avoid running afoul of the law when employing social media influencers and using marketing tools like user-generated content, hashtags and native advertising online
  • The privacy-related developments that have arisen in connection with geo-location tracking and interest-based advertising
  • How to minimize the risks that accompany social media use in the workplace

In addition, an in-house panel will provide creative solutions to real-world social-media-related issues and address emerging social media trends.

Don’t miss this opportunity to get up-to-date information on the fast-breaking developments in the critical area of social media so that you can most effectively meet the needs of your clients.

For more information or to register, please visit PLI’s website here. We hope to see you there!

After British police unsuccessfully tried to get the blogging platform WordPress.com to remove offensive and threatening posts, the deputy leader of the UK’s Labour Party vowed to urge changes that would make the country’s laws less tolerant of online abuse.

As bipartisan U.S. legislation to prevent the appearance of foreign-entity-funded political ads on social media gains traction, Twitter announced that it will impose a “promoted by political account” label on election ads and allow everyone to see all ads currently running on the platform regardless of whom those ads target. These efforts will not prevent automated accounts known as “bots” from influencing voters or spreading fake news on Twitter, but an op-ed in The Guardian suggests the technology to overcome the bots problem exists.

While we’re on the subject of potential solutions for the problems that plague social media, one industry observer suggests that blockchain technology, which records digital events on a public ledger and requires consensus among users, could cure social networks’ fake-news and trolling problems, and prevent brands from purchasing fake followers.

Legislation is another way of discouraging undesirable online behavior. In Texas, “David’s Law” now requires school districts to create cyberbullying policies and to investigate bullying reports that involve students but take place off-campus or after school hours. And legislation that cleared a committee in Tallahassee would make threatening someone on social media in Florida a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

Should artificial intelligence be regulated? Some experts believe that the time is now, on the cusp of the AI revolution.

Facebook acquired a nine-week-old startup whose app encourages teens to anonymously exchange positive feedback.

This piece quoting Socially Aware contributor Julie O’Neill explains how cross-device tracking can cause employees to expose their organizations to significant data security risks—especially if the employees use their personal devices to perform work-related tasks.

The online marketplace eBay launched a service for sellers of certain luxury wallets and handbags that relies on experts to verify the authenticity of the goods being sold, backed by a 200% money-back guarantee.

Instagram has become such an integral part of promoting restaurants that the Culinary Institute of America will begin offering electives in food photography and food styling.

Tips for becoming a social media influencer from a pair of fashion bloggers who made it big.

With much fanfare, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) continues to take actions relating to so-called “social media influencers” who allegedly fail to disclose material connections to the products or brands they endorse. Recurring enforcement actions and guidance—and the FTC’s ongoing promotion of its own efforts, such as through Twitter chats—make it clear that the FTC believes that its message has still not been heard by all of the players in this advertising ecosystem, including influencers themselves.

In short, any endorsements in any medium where the endorser has a material connection of any kind to the endorsed advertiser must be disclosed.

The most recent developments include an enforcement action against a company—and two of its officers—in connection with endorsements of the company made by the officers in YouTube videos and in social media.  Before turning to this case, however, we provide a brief overview of how the FTC has gotten here. Continue Reading Brands Beware: FTC Continues Campaign on Social Media Influencer Disclosures

In 2016, brands spent $570 million on social influencer endorsements on Instagram alone. This recode article takes a looks at how much influencers with certain followings can command, and whether they’re worth the investment.

And don’t overlook the legal issues associated with the use of social media influencers; the FTC just settled its first complaint against social media influencers individually. The case involved two online gamers who posted videos of themselves promoting a gaming site that they failed to disclose they jointly owned.

In a precedent setting opinion, the European Court of Human Rights held that the right to privacy of a Romanian man, Bogdan Bărbulescu, was violated when Bărbulescu’s employer, without explicitly notifying Bărbulescu, read personal messages that Bărbulescu sent from an online account that Bărbulescu had been asked to set up for work purposes.

In other European news, the attorney general for England and Wales, Jeremy Wright, MP, has begun an inquiry into whether that jurisdiction needs to impose restrictions on social media in order to help ensure criminal defendants there get a fair trial.

More than half of Americans 50 or older now get their news from social media sites, Pew Research Center’s 2017 social media survey shows.

Celebrities who promote initial coin offerings (ICOs) on social media risk violating laws that apply to the public promotion of securities.

Facebook developed an artificial intelligence robot that can express emotion by making realistic facial expressions at appropriate times.

A college student has sued Snapchat and the Daily Mail for alleged defamation and invasion of privacy arising from the use of the student’s name and image on Discover, Snapchat’s social news feature, under the headline, “Sex, Drugs and Spring Break—College Students Descent on Miami to Party in Oceans of Booze and Haze of Pot Smoke.”

Is the threat of artificial intelligence disrupting a slew of industries less imminent than we thought?

Google created a website that uses fun illustrations to show which “how to” queries its users entered into the search engine most.

The popularity of online videos that viewers can appreciate with the sound turned off has led to striking similarities between early silent film and modern social video.

A defamation suit brought by one reality television star against another—and naming Discovery Communications as a defendant—could determine to what extent (if any) media companies may be held responsible for what their talent posts on social media.

In a move characterized as setting legal precedent, UK lawyers served an injunction against “persons unknown” via an email account linked to someone who was posting allegedly defamatory “fake news” stories on social media.

European regulators fined Google $2.7 billion for violating antitrust law by allegedly tailoring algorithms for product-related queries to promote its own comparison shopping service. If the search company doesn’t change how its search engine works in the EU in the next few months, it risks fines of up to 5% of its parent company Alphabet Inc.’s daily revenue.

A newly formed trade group, called the Influencer Marketing Council, is representing social influencers in discussions with regulators and Internet platforms, and is leading an effort to outline best practices for complying with the FTC’s endorsement guidelines.

Pinterest’s commercial progress has reportedly been hampered by several factors, including the format of its advertisements, which must mimic user posts—something that requires brands to design content specifically for the platform.

Members of law enforcement have expressed concerns regarding the safety risks posed by a Snapchat update that lets users see the exact location of their Snapchat “friends.” An article on The Verge has some useful tips on how to use the function, which is called Snap Map, and how to turn it off.

Because the First Amendment limits the ability of the U.S. government to regulate search companies’ and social media platforms’ policies and guidelines, companies like Google and Twitter might eventually be de facto regulated even within the United States by foreign nations whose governments are entitled to regulate what happens on the Internet in order to protect their citizens according to their own laws.

Several A-list musicians have stepped away from social media at least partly because their incredible popularity has made them an attractive target for trolls.

Here are tips on how to limit online service providers from collecting information about you in using social media and surfing the web.

Thumbs Up on Social Technology and Internet Set

Social media is reportedly rife with influencers promoting or reviewing products or services without disclosing compensation or other consideration that they’ve received for such endorsements. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the UK’s consumer protection regulator, is stepping up efforts to combat such undisclosed endorsements.

Following a ruling against an influencer marketing company, Social Chain Ltd, the CMA has warned 15 companies and 43 “social media personalities” who used Social Chain to publish content on social media that they could be in breach of UK consumer protection laws.

As we have discussed many times in Socially Aware, the advertising landscape has undergone a dramatic transformation over the past decade. The rise of social media and ever-increasing levels of Internet access across the world have made social media advertising a strong challenger to more traditional—and expensive—advertising methods, such as television advertising.

Of course, there is nothing novel in companies seeking to use celebrities to attract attention to and create excitement for their brand messages. But what has changed is the medium; when a consumer follows a celebrity on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat or Twitter (especially a social media personality who has become famous as a result of being on YouTube, Instagram, etc.), it’s not always easy to distinguish between a genuine opinion and an advertisement. Continue Reading UK Consumer Protection Regulator Cracks Down on Undisclosed Endorsements and “Cherry Picking” Reviews on Social Media