Regulating blogs now? I don't see how that's even possible.

This is why I continue to go to Consumer Reports first when researching a major purchase (and sometimes not so major). They have not let me down yet.

Eh, if you can't figure out that blogs like ThatsFit and CasaSugar aren't getting kickbacks for what they "suggest", you're a pretty dim bulb.

Discerning buyers never trust just one or two reviews (especially if they are the gushing variety)for major/semi major purchases. I personally assign much more weight to how reviewers have complaints or problems resolved than their initial rush or excitement upon buying. You can divine a lot of how you will enjoy the product if the seller or manufacturer treats its customers with respect and integrity.

No major product with moving parts or mechanical complexity is perfect. Stuff happens. But how you are treated when asking the maker to stand behind the product goes a long way toward making you a repeat buyer.

@henrygates: With the government we have anything is possible.

@HRHKingFridayXX: I dont think those are the problems. The problem would be something like Engadget reviewing something and being influenced by free stuff. (Left Gizmodo out, because with their kind of attitude, they'd just take the freebie and ridicule the crap out of the company/product .

@Psychicsword: Well, with everything going on I can see how they would try, but I don't see it as practical. It would be impossible to enforce beyond a handful of mainstream, popular blogs (like this one!).

@HRHKingFridayXX: True, but there are some complaint blogs (Not Consumerist) that are on the Take. They publish bad stories about a company (Some true, some not so much) but for a "small" annual fee, the bad stories will be removed and positive stories by the "editor" will be posted.

@Snarkysnake: I think the whole idea is that people are too dumb to think for themselves and they need the government to protect them from the Internet.

TreeHugger was part of the Ford rent-a-blog promotion. Boing Boing featured the TreeHugger experience in their Gadgets area. I haven't read either since.

@HRHKingFridayXX: My city has a very active blogging community, and new restaurants (in particular) have taken to inviting the bloggers out for a free meal to try to generate buzz. This is the kind of thing they're getting after.

(And it's a small enough community that everyone discloses because everyone knows what's going on anyway; also, our first few bloggers were all ex-journalists and sort-of set the standard for those that followed, so certain journalistic practices, like disclosing conflicts, are common locally on the blogs.)

How on Earth did humanity survive before review blogs?

C'mon. Aren't we inventing problems that really have no reason to exist?

The thing that's sad about this is that if reviewers simply disclosed their freebies, there'd be no controversy or concern.
Hey, Bloggers, traditional media has been around for quite a while and has - y'know - learned stuff. Ignore at your own peril.

i actually rely on user reviews quite a bit - but I think it's fairly easy to tell a reputable blog from a low-brow spammy blog.

I write a personal travel site, and have received offers of upgrades and discounted visits AFTER giving a good review to a place - which is nice.

I would have no problem accepting something free under the condition it's disclaimed, and it wouldn't affect my review of them.

James [www.futuregringo.com]

@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): I'm not sure I see a problem with that. On the one hand, it's a great way to get people into your restaurant (or using your product or whatever applies here) and get yourself some reviews, but it does seem like it would make the reviewer look like they were on the take for accepting a free item and then reviewing it.

Using Amazon as a great example, I believe that there's a difference with their Vine service, which gives you free items to review, and the practice that some of their vendors do where they offer free items to change a negative review to a positive one. That's what I have a problem with. I don't see any problem with a blog saying, "So-and-so sent us this CD for free" and then going on to give a review. I don't know if it should be required or not though…

I also don't get how this will work practically. I have my own blog, it's basically a blog where I put my political rantings & ravings, plus a bunch of family updates for my extended family to read - sort of the equivalent of a family newsletter in blog format.

During the course of my travels and various family activities I often post reviews of products and services. The target audience for these reviews is my family.

Now, say, I post a review of a hotel and I happen to have a loyalty card with that hotel chain. My elite status might entitle me to certain perks that others don't have access to. And say I write a glowing review of that hotel. In my mind, I haven't been bought off, nor in the mind of any of my target audience (my family). But that review does get picked up by Google, and it theory other people can read it.

So do I now have to disclose this information? And in what format? Do I have to hire a lawyer to formulate the disclosure statement, for my family blog?

Seems silly to me... and difficult to enforce.

@henrygates: I think you're right. While I believe that sometimes laws are needed to protect citizens from one another (including business entities), our government unfortunately has it backward.

If you can't read things online (or in print) and judge for yourself their merit, no intervention on the part of the government is going to help you, truly. Bloggers can, will, and should write whatever they want. Personal ethics and morals can't be legislated, much as some folks might wish they could be.

So journalistic integrity from "non-blog" media outlets is the standard to which blogs should aspire?

Man, it's bizarro day.

@changed my name: Alas, they still don't update their reviews often enough.

Hey CR online: it's the 21st century. Time to drop obsolete models from the rankings immediately, not next year.

@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): See I don't see a huge issue there. If a new restaurant wants to offer me a free meal to get me to review their place that's fine with me, so long as they allow me to write WHATEVER OPINION I WANT after said meal is over. I should not be offered a free meal as a "bribe" to write a positive review.

@humphrmi:

Exactly - there is no way to enforce this across thousands and thousands of individuals voicing their opinion.

I tend to focus on positive things, and enjoy sharing unique places I've dined or stayed at. I've found excellent places through forums and blogs too.

If I get to know the owner of a local place and he gives me a free meal for all my press (read by a limited number of course) - have I been "bought off" I don't know - don't care.

@fayska: Speaking of BoingBoing, a few months ago, their readers caught Cory and Co. blatantly shilling for Comcast within their BoingBoing posts. The shitstorm from the readers was pretty fun, and refreshing, to read, as was CoryMarkJeniEtc.'s backtracking and excuse-making.

@dragonfire81: So the fact you didn't pay a penny for an expensive meal would have *no* effect on the review you wrote? Even subconsciously? I don't buy that at all.

It's easy to overlook things if the money isn't coming out of your own pocket. You'll also find that the freebies will dry up if you write critical reviews. That's the problem: The reviewers who want to stay on the gravy train will keep writing puff pieces.

@jamesdenver: Thanks for putting out the word that you're for sale. If you really believe that a freebie won't affect your review you're delusional. You're human, after all.

@dragonfire81: But when a restaurant knows you are coming for your free meal, you may get special service and higher quality fare, thus preventing you from providing a fair review. This is why many restaurant reviewers have hidden their identity when dining out. I wouldn't trust the review of a person who had special privileges, positive or negative.

@seattlemaninblue: Are you nuts? You honestly feel as though your word can be bought with a free meal? I feel sorry for you.

As long as you have an influential voice, people will continue to request your opinion. If you are writing "puff pieces" to get free meals, I doubt you hold very much influence. People who are honest, transparent and real hold the influence.

That is what is good about the Internet, it is fairly self-correcting. Sure, you may squeak one by here and there, but for the most part, people can tell when you are full of s**t.

I see nothing wrong with a restaurant offering a free meal to a blogger in turn for a review as long as the blogger discloses what is going on.

Obviously the main issue would be the blogger getting treatment, service, product that is not on par with what the typical consumer gets, but that is an age-old problem with restaurant reviewing.

I can tell you right now without any hesitation... I would not be influenced to lie in a review by a restaurant offering me a free meal.

The problem would be ACME Restaurant keeping a particular blogger on the payroll, not simply offering them the chance to sample their product.

@seattlemaninblue: Seconded. I know that no matter how objective I was trying to be, a freebie/sponsorship would at the very LEAST make me give my review a second thought. I'd probably be more likely to think up more positive things to say to balance the negative.

@dragonfire81: Sure, but just the fact that you were comped for eating there will affect your review -- as will the fact that they doubtless gave you extra-special service, knowing you'd be writing a review.

So, you write, "Johnny's Steakhouse Saloon invited me and four other meals to come by and try out their new location. They comped our meal. Here's what I thought ..." and the issue is solved. People are aware you were an invited guest and may have gotten special service, and can read your review accordingly.

All it takes is, "Company X sent me a free one of these to try out" and then your review. rather than a plain "OMG, Company X's product is the best thing since sliced bread!"

I agree that the new restaurants inviting bloggers out is a good strategy, and I don't have a problem with it. I am just in favor of the disclosure that the meal was free. :)

@squinko: "I don't see any problem with a blog saying, "So-and-so sent us this CD for free" and then going on to give a review. I don't know if it should be required or not though…"

I don't have a problem with it either. The place where it gets tricky is that by disclosing it was sent free allows you to make a clear distinction between advertising and editorial content, which have different legal standards and so forth. If you're accepting free product and giving it favorable reviews without disclosing that, that's very hard to distinguish from paid advertising (or "advertorial content"). Disclosure is so easy, it seems silly not to do it and solve the problem.

(Although review copies of CDs and books typically AREN'T disclosed, I guess because everyone assumes they're review copies?)

@henrygates: No, the idea is that accepting money or product in exchange for writing about it is very close to the line for advertising, and the laws governing advertising are different than those governing editorial content. If you're going to start accepting advertising by accepting compensation in exchange for content (that's what advertising is, after all), you're in a different legal realm with different regulations. They're trying to make very clear when you're being editorial and when you're advertising, because it's a legal issue.

(As you might find out if you ever got sued for what you thought was an editorial piece but it turned out you took money and LOOK! It's advertising!)

It IS good journalistic ethics, but there ARE other issues at play, not the government protecting you from yourself.

@humphrmi: You haven't done anything because they didn't give you the elite status in order for you to review it. So it's not an issue.

I think the whole idea of a "review blog" is silly... I don't care about one person's opinion, and I don't want to read an entire page of blathering to get one opinion (of someone whose objectivity is deeply questionable).

What I hate even more is when the normal blogs I read do one-off review posts because some company sent them crap. I don't read your blog because I want to know what you think about Pampers Easy Ups Trainers. And then the review is inevitably followed by a giveaway, which they post about at least FOUR times ("The giveaway is starting now!" "Don't forget about the giveaway!" "The giveaway ends today!" "The winner of the giveaway is [who cares]!").

PLEASE STOP. IT IS SO ANNOYING!

@Tsubasa:

I agree with your second point, but strongly disagree with your first.

Web 2.0 is an incredible resource - provided you're adept and filtering and sifting through the bullshit.

I love Tripadivor, and using travel as an example have found wonderful guest houses, activities, and greatly enhanced my experiences by finding personal travel blogs, or local forums recommending specific things.

Scanning the context of a forum, site, or user history one can easily fnid out if they have exterior motives - but using the "long tail" theory of research it's far more benficial to me at least than reading travel guide books or magazine "top 10" lists.

Everyone seems to be commenting on the difficulty of enforcing this law, but it seems to me that it would be more like one of those which are not really enforced unless someone complains.

Without the law, the complaint is just a complaint. With it, there is now some basis for restitution or retribution.

@WorldHarmony: No, because if a blogger reviews a restaurant, and then you compare that bloggers report with yelp and they don't match? Well, then all your credibility goes out the window. Besides, why would you base your evening on a single blog's review of a place? I try to check out at least yelp and local blogs, if not other reviews.

@jamesdenver: You're right- it is pretty easy to tell places that just promo, and those that review. Besides, if you shill for a product that sucks, readers catch on.

@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): The NYT article also mentions a more subtle form of bias that bloggers have to watch out for (and should disclose if they want to keep their cred). Bloggers getting free stuff who then don't write about it since they don't like it.
I wouldn't be averse to an expectation - perhaps even a rule - that if someone gets something, they have to mention it, even if it's a one-line note saying it didn't make the cut or they didn't have time to adequately review it (i.e., Read Between the Lines: It Blew Chunks).

@ShrikumariAmphisbaena: If you don't think getting an expensive meal for free won't have some effect on your thought process you don't have a basic understanding of human psychology. There's a reason these places want to give you a free meal; they know the chances are good you'll write a more positive review than if you had shelled out your own $100.

Quality newspapers and magazines do not accept free meals. There's a good reason for this.

@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): I know this isn't a legal forum and you're not obliged to give advice here, but apart from making false statements about a product, what are the legal ramifications of posting a review and failing to disclose that the product was gifted?

@seattlemaninblue:

I think it depends on how public the offering is. If it's pretty clear that the restaurant wants an honest review (such as, by publicly announcing that they are doing this), then I see no reason why there would be a tendency to skew the result by the blogger. Taking the cream of the crop in a group is the best way, because they won't want to sully their reputation. For example, I'd be swayed very easily by a review from Eyebrows McGee, SteveDave, Trai or HiPwr, even if we don't agree sometimes (definitely no ohenwy though). If the restaurant reinforces the idea that they want an honest review, it is actually more likely to sway opinion in their favor because it just means that they are that confident in the food!
In this case, you only have to worry about the restaurant doing extra things like special service, extra specially prepared plates, etc. because they know they have a review on the line.

@UlricKepla: But what exactly would the complaint be? "Betty Blogger said Wonder Widgets were fabulous, so I bought three, but I wouldn't have done that if I'd known she got hers from Wonder Weasel, Inc. for free"? What is it that the complainant would be alleging, apart from a lack of ethics on the part of the blogger? My issue with this idea is that I can't find how bloggers should be held responsible for the stupidity of others. Should they be honest and disclose any relationship with the product company? If they want to be trusted and respected, yes. But that's for readers to figure out and act upon, and laws are already in place to deal with false advertisement. This is unenforceable nonsense.

@CheritaChen: This is actually my comments as an ex-journalist, not a lawyer (I haven't done media law in several years, and I mostly did first amendment then, not advertising; I dealt a lot more with advertising as an editor): The ramifications would arise if it was determined to be advertising. Advertising is held to different standards -- I'm trying to think of a good example, though the only one that's coming to mind is a bit unlikely. There are restrictions on advertising alcohol to under-21s, though not typically hard rules. Generally the rule of thumb is that you don't advertise alcohol unless 70% of your readership is over 21. So if you wrote a blog about beer that was inexplicably popular with 10 year olds, as long as it's just you editorializing about beer it's fine. But if you take free beer and then write about its awesomeness, one could argue that's an advertisement -- you were paid (in beer) to pimp the beer. But disclosing the beer was free puts you back into editorial world.

Another unlikely example would be if you blogged about taking a birth control pill and said, "OMG, it cleared up my acne and got rid of my bloat, best. pill. evah!" But if the pill-maker had provided you the pill free and you blogged that without disclosing you got it free, is the pill-maker trying to do an end run around FDA regulations that say they can only advertise their drug as being for on-label uses? (That is, pillmakers can't advertise that their pill clears up acne unless that's an FDA-approved reason to prescribe it.)

Oh, wait, I thought of a more normal example: I recall an issue that arose when a nearby paper wrote about a 2-for-1 deal or something like that, and companies in that state were obligated to honor (most) advertising misprints (on the theory it was their fault for not checking the ad more closely, and our contracts with advertisers spelled out who was at fault for what misprints) or ads that they changed their minds about. Since this was just a news story about a 2-for-1 deal at a local Chinese restaurant, the restaurant wasn't obligated to honor it (which, when they found out how popular it was, they refused to do). But what if the restaurant had given a blogger free food in exchange for writing about the 2-for-1 deal? Is that advertising, which the restaurant is obligated to honor, or is that editorial comment?

Anyway, most products aren't particularly restricted in how they can advertise, and usual issues relate to different standards of truthfulness that might bear on libel issues and things like that, or (as above) state laws relating to honoring ads. But we could definitely imagine a particularly corrupt Big Pharma or Big Tobacco company trying to end run around advertising restrictions by buying off bloggers and keeping it secret.

@Trai_Dep: A couple of blogs that I read that review books (and sometimes movies, CDs, etc.) in a particular area of interest publish a monthly list of "Books (etc.) received for review." Neither reviews everything they receive for review, but it lets you see which publishers are particularly wooing that outlet ... and it lets readers e-mail, "Oh, dude, review that one, I've heard a lot about it!" I like it as a reader.

@trujunglist: I recently reviewed a handful of baby products I've found particularly useful, and in one case, the company bobbled my order (had a computer outage the day I ordered), so sent me five of the product instead of one. I didn't really even think about it at the time (after working for a newspaper, I typically overdisclose without really thinking about it), but I mentioned it in the review for two reasons -- first, I wanted people to know that the company was awesome in handling a really minor customer service issue; and second, I felt responsible for saying I got more than I ordered -- both because that's a good thing and because it definitely makes me more favorably disposed toward the product.

Either way it lets people make a more informed decision -- "Hey, this is a really great company!" or "Meh, she got free stuff from them, I bet it isn't as good as she ways."

@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): *They sent me five of them to make up for mailing my product a day late. Not because the computer got confused and sent me five instead of one. :) I got an apologetic e-mail for the late processing of my order, telling me they were terribly sorry, had had an outage, felt awful about missing the ship date, and were sending me five. Seriously, one day late, and no guaranteed ship date (just a "we usually ship within 48 hours" or something like that on the website).

I'd say journalism has been pretty sad in general for a while now. Very few bother to ask useful questions, do research, or even verification anymore.

Recently I saw an article about the cheating site AshleyMadison that seemed to take the information given to them at face value. The cited the number of sign-ups as if that was a true reflection of usage when signing up is free and un-moderated.

And they didn't challenge the owner's claim he's not inciting people when their company slogan blatantly does that.

@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): Thanks for the good info. A potential review of the legal definition(s) of "advertising" makes more sense to me than anything I got from skimming the article.