disclaimers

First of all, I have never yet—to the best of my admittedly fallible memory—blogged about anything given to me gratis. That doesn't mean I won't ever do so, or that I think doing so is a great evil. It just hasn't happened.

Second, I believe that disclosing that an item being reviewed was received free of cost is ethically the right thing to do, regardless of any legal requirements. It's simply a matter of basic honesty.

Those two things said, I personally suspect the US FCC's strong recommendation that bloggers make disclosure treads dangerously close on treating the speech of bloggers differently from that of other media. Would such treatment stand up in the US courts? I don't know; as a strong free-speech supporter, I certainly hope it would not.

In any case, any blog reader who assumes that, because the FCC is enforcing such a rule, all bloggers will adhere to it is both naïve, and does not grasp the international nature of the Web. I certainly hope that FCC commissioners and staffers don't fall into those categories, but I do wonder. After all, this is the same government agency that has spent, and continues to spend, vast quantities of money in a tizzy over Janet Jackson's nipple.