Know-How Exchange : Other

Dear Leslie,

First of all, I am NOT a lawyer or an expert on federal policy.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS APPLY:

Sign here ............................................ Date here ..../..../....
An initial here ....... and here ........ to indicate that you have read these terms and conditions and that you abide by them. E&OE.

By reading further you acknowledge that you have read and agree to the above terms.

Answer: Probably not.

The thing about the FTC guidelines is this: comply, by God!

I've had first-hand experience with several departments of
the United States Government, viz:

US Dept. of Labor
US Dept. of Justice
US Dept. of Immigration and Naturalization
US Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services
US Dept. of Homeland Security

I've been fingerprinted, photographed, questioned, re-fingerprinted, rephotographed and filled in more forms and filed more filing fees than you could possibly imagine. And from all this I learned a valuable lesson, and it's this:

Even if the Federal Government is WRONG, they are right. And YOU, whether you like it or not, you will comply.

When the FTC says jump, you ask how high, in what direction, and at what velocity.

When the FTC says do a little dance, you dance your buns off. When they say, affiliate marketers, this is the way it's gonna be, guess what?

This is the way it's gonna be.

Your little asterisk? It ain't worth spit. I have one on my modest little blog and it, ain't worth Jack.

"*I am an affiliate of this organization." means nothing and it probably does not cover you if the Feds com a knockin'!

It appears that the real beef the FTC has is that affiliates have,
in certain cases—allegedly been claiming that this person got this result (whatever the result is or was), and that by saying so—in whatever form—that the affiliate is implying that you too will achieve the same result.

Making money, losing weight, whatever it is—the extreme result in the headline or in the body copy or in the guarantee—the stunning thing that compels people to read, dream, and think "Jeez! That could be me!" and whip out their credit card and buy the dream of the bajillion dollars in nine seconds or the 500lbs of lard lost in five minutes—this promise, according to the FTC, as a blanket terms therefore IMPLIES that ALL buyers will achieve the SAME RESULTS.

Which of course, is BS.

You know it, I know it, the Feds know it, the Website OWNER knows it—and the buyer knows it.

But the buyer wants to BELIEVE that they'll be the exception and that by some stroke of luck, that THEY won't HAVE to do all the hard work to get the perfect body or make the million dollars.

Which again, is BS.

But, when the buyer buys the thing, the course, the widget, the e-book and then, as many people do—DOES NOTHING WITH IT— the buyer can then turn around and claim that they've been shafted by the snake oil selling online marketer—BECAUSE the result THEY got didn't match their expectation.

As Ron White of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour says, "You can't fix stupid!"

Here, for your elucidation, education, and confabulation, are the official FTC guidelines.

https://www.ftc.gov/opa/2007/10/affiliate.shtm

I hope this helps.

Gary Bloomer
Wilmington, DE, USA
Follow me on www.twitter.com @GaryBloomer

Wow! That was a doozie! Thank you! So how should I address this?

Maybe define what an affilate is and the top of the page and let them know that if they buy something from that company I will be compensated and that I am in no way responsible for their results if they aren't happy with what they've bought?

Better?