Bring It!

The free stuff that is. You may remember that some people in this blogging family take issue with bloggers receiving free stuff to review. And you may also remember that I handily dismissed any arguments against freebies for bored bloggers hooked on mail in a previous post (I could use some more soap Rand, as I'm still figuring out how I feel about it).

While free stuff has long been a staple of the blogging community (it's the SWAG for the stay-at-home set), the government has finally decided that giving people things and asking them to write about them (kindly) is somehow warping favorably the reputation of those things among consumers. In the name of consumer protection, the FTC is instituting a whole new and improved set of rules and regulations about blogging on behalf of products and more important, penalizing bloggers who fail to disclose that they might be getting something from the company whose product they have written about.

While I had heard these rumors for quite awhile, I never checked into them until today. A quick internet search led me to the rules and to this video clip explaining how the rules will impact bloggers. As far as I can tell, I mean according to Mary Engle who is on-top over at the FTC, as long as I tell you that I got something for free, I am free to discuss it as I see fit in my blog. Lucky for me, I've always played by that rule. But just to be safe I will from now on be employing the following disclosure near the top of every product review.

DISCLOSURE: Dear Reader (note that's singular, I'm a realist),
I was given the following product by a junior account manager at a marketing or PR firm who saw my blog listed in a mommy blog catalogue. You and I both know they didn't read my blog or else I never would have been asked to give my humble endorsement of the product below. In any event, I readily agreed to except their gift and tell my reader what I think of it. For me the biggest thrill in the whole exchange has passed - it was in seeing the FedEx truck pull up outside my house and having a package handed to me (thereby giving both me and my neighbors the false impression that what I'm up to all day is both urgent and businessy). That said, since my emotional tie to this product was spent upon its delivery you can trust that the review below is accurate and unbiased.

How's that work for you Mary Engle?

And for those PR/Marketing types out there, don't hesitate to contact me - we do (or pretend to do) all things that mommies do...