MediaRadar has recently released a report that looked into how well publishers are complying with the FTC’s guidelines. It found that about 70% of websites are not in compliance, which leaves them exposed to significant trouble should the FTC begin cracking down.
The guidelines in question were regarding native ads. One of the biggest problems that advertisers are making is that they are not labeling these native ads as advertisements. This, of course, makes it difficult for readers to determine whether the author is simply publishing content or if they are publishing an advertisement. Since the December update from the FTC, this is expressly prohibited.
The FTC has already had issues with some companies for this type of thing in the past, so it is not unlikely that they will look to crack down in the future.
Another area in the report that is a concern is with those publishers that do actually identify native ads as paid content, but not do not use the actual work, “AD” which is recommended in most situations. Instead they say things like, “This is a paid post” or “Paid Content” to indicate that it is an advertisement. While this will likely meet the strict requirements of the FTC for now, it may cause problems in the future.
MediaRadar wrote about their report, “One of the reasons native is so fascinating is because it means many different things to publishers. Yes, there are frontrunners such as Forbes, BuzzFeed and The Atlantic who were early adopters for native advertising and have firm, consistent standards. But today we track almost 40 different implementation styles. Some are clearly identified, but others are extremely difficult to know that they were sponsored in anyway.”
It is unlikely that the FTC will continue to allow this type of violation of their policies to go unchecked for too much longer. Publishers should look at this report as a warning to ensure their native advertisements are in line with regulations.
