Fake weblogs or flogs have finally been told to flog off.
No longer just unethical PR practise, flogs will soon be illegal in the UK. Thanks to the ‘Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008′ it will be against the law for companies to mislead the public with fake blogs from the 28th May. It’s a great move and one which I hope will see the PR industry continue to move away from it’s image of lies and spin. After all deceiving your customers can’t be a fantastic way to encourage brand loyalty and trust. Or a great way to use a PR budget.
Here, here!
How and who will police that? And how do you define a fake blog. What if a real person is just lying? It definitely seems like a good move but isn’t the nature of blogging the optional anonymity? Interesting stuff.
I’m not sure. It seems impossible to police. I suppose the only way to enforce it is to encourage people to make complaints about fake blogs and comments. But how can you actually tell the difference between a real blog and a fake blog? Perhaps it could be self-regulating but that might not work either.
There’s also the possibility that some might start fake blogs to bad mouth competitors. Or make negative comments on forums and review sites such as Amazon. This could border on libel depending on the comments.
How anonymous is blogging really when you can still be traced through an IP address?