A couple of days ago, Neville Hobson posted a link to an article from the sharp-tongued IT news site The Register.
According to the piece by Phillip Carnell, "covert commercial blogging - or flogging - will soon be banned by Brussels."
Er. Or not. Whilst I applaud the spirit of the article, I think The Register has used a bit of poetic license on this one (shurely not?). Having reviewed the text of the Directive, the only section relevant is the Appendix of "non-exhaustive" misleading advertising practices:
"Falsely claiming or creating the impression that the trader is not acting for purposes relating to his trade, business, craft or profession, or falsely representing oneself as a consumer."
Nowhere in the Directive are mentions of any of the specific practices that The Register says will be outlawed.
Using this definition, I doubt much will change unless an advertiser purposely uses a blog to represent itself as a consumer (NB. these wouldn't include fake blogs from the "characters" that some companies use to promote their products). I also doubt whether it would disallow companies from paying third parties to spread word of mouth in the ways the article suggests.
http://blogs.hillandknowlton.com/blogs/niallcook/a...