[kaffee]

Does anyone know about the legality of this? My suspicion is that this black-hat content marketing is perfectly legal under US law. It's only potentially a violation of individual platforms' TOS (or publishing agreements). Is this approximately correct?

[ceejayoz]

It may fall under the FTC’s regulations on influencer endorsements: https://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/attachments/press-re...

[kaffee]

I thought this was mostly unenforced or unenforceable in cases like this -- where it would be really hard to prove that someone took a payment. I'll keep digging. Thanks!

One more thing -- this isn't an explicit endorsement. It's content marketing. I rather thought that made even the FTC rules hard to apply.

Also: "The Guides are not regulations, and so there are no civil penalties associated with them. But if advertisers don’t follow the guides, the FTC may decide to investigate whether the practices are unfair or deceptive under the FTC Act." https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/media-resources/truth-advert...

edit: more details

[JMTQp8lwXL]

I would presume there is a 1099 or W2 somewhere, unless this is happening internationally.

[dylz]

https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/plain-language/10...