An Inescapable Web of Advertisements

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The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) "may soon require online media to comply with disclosure rules under its truth-in-advertising guidelines." FTC assistant director Richard Cleland said, "Consumers have a right to know when they're being pitched a product." But the "hypercommercialism of the Web" may be "changing too quickly for consumers and regulators to keep up," reports the New York Times. "Product placements are landing on so-called status updates on Facebook, companies are sponsoring messages on Twitter and bloggers are defining their own parameters of what constitutes independent work versus advertising." Izea, the "online marketing company" that created PayPerPost in 2006 to match marketers with bloggers willing to promote products, is branching out. Not only does it have "25,000 active advertisers ranging from Sea World to small online retailers" and 265,000 bloggers, but it's readying "a 'Sponsored Tweets' platform for Twitter users to blast promotional messages to their followers." Giveaways to popular bloggers are often a part of such campaigns. Last year, Izea carried out a campaign for Kmart that gave "six popular bloggers known to be influencers" $500 gift cards "to shop at the discount chain." The bloggers were "asked to write about their experiences," and the campaign "generated 800 blog posts and 3,200 Twitter messages that reached 2.5 million people over 30 days," according to Izea.