From the Venus Project:
The Venus Project presents a bold, direction for humanity that entails nothing less than the total redesign of our culture. There are many people today who are concerned with the serious problems that face our modern society: unemployment, violent crime, technological unemployment, over-population and the destruction of the Earth’s ecosystems. As you will see, The Venus Project is dedicated to confronting all of these problems by actively engaging in the research, development, and application of workable solutions. Through the use of innovative approaches to social awareness, educational incentives, and the consistent application of the best that science and technology can offer directly to the social system, The Venus Project offers a comprehensive plan for social reclamation in which human beings, technology, and nature will be able to coexist in a long-term, sustainable state of dynamic equilibrium.
Designing the Future by Jacque Fresco of the Venus Project [PDF]
Venus Project FAQ
Continue reading about The start of civilization: redefining our culture, designing the future
From Workplace Prof Blog:
No more jumps out of the page and slaps you in the face, but the Eleventh Circuit still does not think that a worker often called ‘boy’ established a racially hostile environment.
In Alexander v. Opelika Pub. Schs., No. 08-11014 (11th Cir. 11/10/09), a public school employee in Alabama who allegedly was called “boy” eight times over two years and heard a supervisor comment about a noose did not present sufficient evidence to survive summary judgment on his racial harassment claim.
If we’re lucky, the 11th Circuit’s miserly construction of Title VII will be slapped down again by the Supreme Court.
From the NYT:
The most important new antidiscrimination law in two decades — the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act — will take effect in the nation’s workplaces next weekend, prohibiting employers from requesting genetic testing or considering someone’s genetic background in hiring, firing or promotions.
[...]
The biggest change resulting from the law is that it will — except in a few circumstances — prohibit employers and health insurers from asking employees to give their family medical histories. The law also bans group health plans from the common practice of rewarding workers, often with lower premiums or one-time payments, if they give their family medical histories when completing health risk questionnaires.
From Slate:
This June, in Ricci v. DeStefano, the Supreme Court held that the city of New Haven discriminated against white firefighters when it rejected the results of a promotion exam that eliminated almost all of the minority candidates. Frank Ricci and other white firefighters, as well as one Latino, claimed that the city intentionally discriminated against them on the basis of race, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, by rejecting the exam simply because too many of the highest scorers were white and thus denying them promotions.* New Haven’s defense was that it rejected the exam because using it would have violated another part of Title VII that prohibits tests that have a disparate impact on minorities—meaning any test that needlessly screens out a disproportionate number of minorities. During oral argument, Justice Souter worried that Ricci’s lawsuit put New Haven in a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation”: liable for disparate-impact discrimination against blacks if it used the test and liable for intentional discrimination against whites if it didn’t use it.
Sure enough, last week, just as New Haven prepared to promote a group consisting almost entirely of white fire captains and lieutenants based on the exam results, a black New Haven firefighter, Michael Briscoe, filed a disparate-impact lawsuit against the city. Like Frank Ricci, Briscoe is a sympathetic plaintiff. He received the highest score of any candidate on the oral portion of the lieutenant’s promotion exam. But he isn’t eligible for promotion because the city based 60 percent of each candidate’s score on the written exam. On this part of the test, Briscoe—like most black candidates for promotion—did comparatively badly.
Continue reading about The future of disparate impact doctrine
Party like it’s 1999? From commondreams.org:
Today marks the 10-year anniversary of the passage of the repeal of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act and related legislation. [...]
The repeal of Glass-Steagall removed the legal prohibition on combinations between commercial banks on the one hand, and investment banks and other financial services companies on the other. Glass-Steagall’s strict rules originated in the U.S. government’s response to the Depression and reflected the learned experience of the severe dangers to consumers and the overall financial system of permitting giant financial institutions to combine commercial banking with other financial operations.
[...]
What lessons should be learned from the 10-year debacle?
First, Glass-Steagall’s key insight was in the need to treat regulation from an industry structure point of view. Glass-Steagall’s authors did not set out to establish a regulatory system to oversee companies that combined commercial banking and investment banking. They simply banned the combination of these enterprises. Cleaning up the current mess, we need strategies that focus on industry structure — meaning, especially, that we must break up the big banks — as well as more traditional regulation.
Second, we need to return to Glass-Steagall’s more particular understanding: depository institutions backed by federal insurance protection cannot be involved in the risky, speculative betting of the investment banking world. (Notably, the Glass-Steagall problem is now worse than it was before the financial crisis, following JP Morgan’s acquisition of Bear Stearns, and Bank of America’s takeover of Merrill Lynch.) Moreover, we need not just to reinstate Glass-Steagall, but infuse its underlying principles throughout the financial regulatory scheme. Commercial banks should not be in the business of speculation. They have a job to do in providing credit to the real economy. They should do that. Their job is not to engage in betting on derivatives and other exotic financial instruments.
Third, giant financial institutions exercise too much political power, and for that reason alone must be broken up.
Fourth, we need broad reform in the area of money and politics. We need public financing of Congressional regulations, even stronger lobbyist reforms, and tight restrictions to close the revolving door through which individuals spin as they travel between positions in government and industry.
[Source: commondreams.org]
Continue reading about Repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, 10 years later
From the Albany Times Union:
After a local Schenectady denizen’s FOIA request to access the local city code — to learn whether he was running afoul of any local ordinances due to an unruly dog — is denied, he learns he must pay at least $200 to have access to the city code.
Two options seem unreasonably expensive for an individual: He could purchase a copy of the code in a paper binder from General Code for $656 or on a CD-ROM disk bundled with General Code’s software for $200.
General Code is a private sector company the city has contracted with for about $20,000 “to create a comprehensive, searchable electronic version of the code that eventually will be posted on the Web and available to all.”
Schenectady is not alone — with lovely blue states like Oregon and California in the mix.
See also: Professor Posts “Illegal Copy” of Guide To Oregon Public Record Laws and dares the AG to respond.
Open-access champion Carl Malamud’s “All the Government’s Information” is a must.
Continue reading about Copyrighted city laws available to you for only $200
From the Sylvia Rivera Law Project:
In October 2009, President Obama signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act into law. This law makes it a federal hate crime to assault people based on sexual orientation, gender and gender identity by expanding the scope of a 1968 law that applies to people attacked because of their race, religion or national origin. In support of this goal, it expands the authority of the U.S. Department of Justice to prosecute such crimes instead of or in collaboration with local authorities. The law also provides major increases in funding for the U.S. Department of Justice and local law enforcement to use in prosecuting these crimes – including special additional resources to go toward prosecution of youth for hate crimes.
From talkingpointsmemo.com:
ACORN is suing the U.S. government over a law passed recently by Congress that bars the controversial community group from receiving federal money.
In a complaint filed this morning in U.S. District Court in New York, ACORN charges that the law is unconstitutional, because it’s a bill of attainder — that is, it targets a specific individual or group for punishment.
The complaint, brought on behalf of ACORN by the Center for Constitutional Rights, also mounts a broader push-back against ACORN’s conservative critics. According to a draft version examined by TPMmuckraker, it claims that the law to defund ACORN was passed thanks to “a public relations campaign orchestrated by political forces” that are hostile to its work registering low-income voters. And it charges that ACORN “earned the animosity of political forces who are dedicated to the proposition that the fewer poor people who vote the better.”
Complaint for Injunctive and Declaratory Relief [PDF]
Bill of Attainder Fact Sheet [PDF]
ACORN v. USA Exhibits [PDF]
ACORN v. USA Memo of Law [PDF]
From the Guardian(UK):
Wolf Blitzer apparently really distinguished himself yesterday by asking Nidal Hasan’s military lawyer, retired Colonel John Galligan, how on earth he could do such a thing.
[...]
The best line of Obama’s Ft. Hood speech, by the way, was: “We are a nation of laws whose commitment to justice is so enduring that we would treat a gunman and give him due process, just as surely as we will see that he pays for his crimes.” That’s not a liberal sentiment, nor (obviously) a conservative one, but a constitutional one. Any American who doesn’t see this isn’t really much of an American.
Wolf Blitzer is one of those clueless, privileged, pathetic idiots who will never be able to make the distinction between his ass and his face. While this quintessential jackass obliviously makes an even bigger ass of himself on a daily basis, he dominates the airwaves with his pseudo-journalism and banks a six figure salary.
From the ABA Journal:
An Illinois judge has decided that an anonymous commenter on a newspaper website will be unmasked, even though the mother of a teen about whom “Hipcheck16″ allegedly made “deeply disturbing” comments hasn’t yet decided whether to sue over the posting.
Continue reading about Judge rules anonymous web site commenter will be “unmasked”
From Gawker:
Because he is an idiot, Glenn Beck tried in September to shut down glennbeckrapedandmurderedayounggirlin1990.com, a satirical site that used Beck’s insidious “I’m just asking the question” pose to advance the Fark-inspired meme that Beck may have raped and murdered a young girl in 1990, because, well—have you ever heard him deny it?
The proprietor was anonymous at the time, but he’s come out of the closet as Isaac Eiland-Hall, a Florida computer programmer who was sick of Beck’s posturing and enjoyed funny things on the internet. Beck complained to a World Intellectual Property Organization arbitration panel that the site was defamatory and infringed on the trademark he holds over his own name. Late last month, his complaint was denied.
Read the rest of the article here.
Read the WIPO decision [trust me, it's worth the read!]
The satire site has been taken down, but click here for a mirror site.
Continue reading about Glenn Beck Loses Suit Against Satire Site
Here is the round up of today’s news on H.R.3962 – Affordable Health Care for America Act, which the House passed last night in a 220-215 vote (with only 1 Republican voting – Joseph Cao – R-La., calling it a “decision of conscience“). The bill contains a public option, however there is some debate over how “robust” the public option will be in practical terms (i.e., who will be eligible for the public option).
Democrats say the House measure — paid for through new fees and taxes, along with cuts in Medicare — would extend coverage to 36 million people now without insurance while creating a government health insurance program. It would end insurance company practices like not covering pre-existing conditions or dropping people when they become ill. [Source: Sweeping Health Care Plan Passes House]
The passage of the bill came at the expense of reproductive rights, with restrictions on abortion “barring any insurance plan that is purchased with government subsidies from covering abortions” by a vote of 290-194 (see NYT: Abortion Was Heart of Wrangling; see also Reproductive Rights Prof Blog). Follow the links below to see how members of the House voted on the bill and the controversial Stupak/abortion restrictions amendment. Next up: passage of the bill in the Senate (the chamber of congress that has the greatest and most special kind of prima donnas and attention whores (read: Jackass Lieberman) who will undoubtedly find a number of ways to play politics with human rights, i.e., since health care is a human right). The culmination of this epic melodrama/circus show is expected to happen before the end of the year when President Obama hopes to sign the bill into law. This is so fun that I can hardly wait until we get to immigration reform.
In other news, the U6 has unemployment figures at 17.5%, as mentioned here last month.
Affordable Healthcare for America Act Headlines
Roll Call on Affordable Health Care for America Act
Roll Call on Stupak/Abortion Restrictions Amendment
Sweeping Health Care Plan Passes House
Abortion Was at Heart of Wrangling
Gay Benefits in Health Bill (editorial comment: this NYT headline is so dumb — I didn’t know the “benefits” had a sexuality)
From threatpost.com:
Two separate bills that would require organizations to notify consumers when their personal information has been compromised have made their way out of committee in the Senate, a critical step toward the creation of a national data-breach notification bill.
A variety of technology vendors, consumer advocacy groups and privacy groups have been calling for Congress to pass a comprehensive federal data-breach notification bill for a number of years now. Several bills have been introduced in both the House and the Senate in recent years, but none has made it to the president’s desk yet.
The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved two different bills, each of which would mandate that organizations that store consumers’ sensitive data notify consumers if that data is breached. Senate bill 139 would require “Federal agencies, and persons engaged in interstate commerce, in possession of data containing sensitive personally identifiable information, to disclose any breach of such information.” The language in the bill is quite similar to that in existing state notification bills, including the landmark California Senate bill 1386.
Read the rest of the article here
Continue reading about Data Breach/Consumer Protection Bills Advance in Senate
From the WSJ:
Lawyers for years have added language to some contracts that stretches beyond the Earth’s atmosphere. But more and more people are encountering such everywhere-and-forever language as entertainment companies tap into amateur talent and try to anticipate every possible future stream of revenue.
Experts in contract drafting say lawyers are trying to ensure that with the proliferation of new outlets — including mobile-phone screens, Twitter, online video sites and the like — they cover all possible venues from which their clients can derive income, even those in outer space. FremantleMedia, one of the producers of NBC’s “America’s Got Talent,” declined to comment on its contracts.
The terms of use listed on Starwars.com, where people can post to message boards among other things, tell users that they give up the rights to any content submissions “throughout the universe and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media or technology now known or hereafter developed.”
Lucasfilm Ltd., Star Wars creator George Lucas’s entertainment company that runs the site, said the language is standard in Hollywood.
[...]
Some legal experts rail against such language as imprecise and unnecessary. Ken Adams, a Garden City, N.Y., attorney and lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania Law School who advocates for clarity in contract language, says references to outer space and the end time are silly.
That kind of language could even be a way of drumming up business, he says. “It adds an aura of magic — you’re dabbling in the occult and you of course need a lawyer to guide you through the mysteries.”
Read the rest of the article here
Continue reading about Lawyerese that stretches beyond Earth’s atmosphere
Donna Smith from commondreams.org writes:
Why does H1N1 call for a Presidential designation as a national emergency while the preventable deaths of 45,000 Americans every year (122 every day) is not?
Swine flu leads the news. You can die from swine flu, or should we say H1N1, even if you have no underlying health conditions. Young people have died, and pregnant women are at risk. People are lining up to be vaccinated. Health professionals are at risk due to poor preparations at some health facilities. As many as 1,000 deaths have occurred due to this flu outbreak. It’s scary out there.
But the swine flu is no match for the killing going on at the hands of the for-profit healthcare system in these United States. We bury kids, pregnant moms, babies, teens, young fathers, mid-lifers and older folks too without even batting an eye in the chambers of power in this nation.
Read the rest of this piece here.
Continue reading about Why Isn’t 122 Dead Americans Every Day a National Health Emergency?
Being a woman is NOT a pre-existing condition.
From Robin at the National Women’s Law Center:
Written by Judy Waxman, Vice President for Health and Reproductive Rights,
National Women’s Law CenterI don’t deserve health care that meets my needs.
I shouldn’t demand fairness in my health care coverage.
I can’t do anything about it anyway.That’s what the health insurance profiteers want you to think.
They aren’t thinking about the mother who is struggling to find insurance because she had a Caesarean section. Not the woman who survived domestic violence and now must face rejection by an insurance company for having a so-called “pre-existing condition.” Not the woman who pays more than a man for the same health coverage, even when maternity care isn’t covered.
Being a woman is NOT a pre-existing condition.
Being a woman is NOT a pre-existing condition.
Continue reading about A woman is not a pre-existing condition
From the Albany Times Union:
As the fate of state Sen. Hiram Monserrate moved from the courtroom toward the Senate chamber, Friday brought a flurry of news releases from his Democratic colleagues. Most of them called for him to resign or — if he refused — for the chamber to boot him from his seat.
The Queens Democrat was found guilty Thursday of misdemeanor assault despite being acquitted of much more serious felony charges stemming from a December 2008 incident in which his girlfriend’s face was slashed by a broken glass.
After the verdict in the non-jury trial, Senate Democratic Conference Leader John Sampson released a statement saying that the majority Democrats were exploring their options for taking action against Monserrate.
On Friday, a half-dozen members of Sampson’s conference became much more vocal about what that action ought to be.
“Being an elected official is an honor and a privilege, not a right,” said Sen. Liz Krueger of Manhattan in a statement. “As a state legislator, the voters give you the power to decide what laws all 19 million of us live under. And as such we are obligated to hold ourselves to the highest standards of our laws.
” … The Senate is exploring our institutional legal options now that the courts have ruled, but haven’t yet issued a sentence,” Krueger continued. “For me, the length of the sentence does not matter – domestic violence is domestic violence, guilt is guilt.”
“We, the Senate, have been through so much this past year,” said Sen. Neil Breslin of Bethlehem. “It is time for us to take the steps necessary to earn back the public’s trust. Hiram Monserrate remaining a member of the Senate contradicts this effort.”
“I have followed the developments in the domestic violence abuse case … and been disgusted by what I have seen and heard,” wrote Sen. David Valesky of Oneida. “Domestic violence is a serious matter and a violent crime that cannot be ignored or dismissed.”
From nojojojo over at Angry Black Woman:
“…25 million Americans are underinsured and I know full well I’m not the only brown one of those. Consider the number of us who are disproportionately affected by poverty, and compare that against the fact that health insurance premiums keep rising by as much as 150% per decade while wages remain essentially flat (note: PDF). Consider how little media attention, medical research, and government funding is accorded to health issues that primarily or disproportionately affect people of color, like sickle cell anemia. Consider also how the intersection of race with gender or other factors, and the lingering effects of colonialism, cause literal epidemics of poor health care, addiction and/or violence in some PoC communities, like ongoing rape and involuntary sterilization among American Indian women. (See also unusualmusic’s insightful linkspams on women in prison, intersexed women of color, and more.)
This is killing us. It is killing us. The current health care system of the US kills people across the board, yes. But it’s killing more of us. And it’s leaving a greater proportion of us in abject poverty or lifelong trauma if we survive.
So we, especially, need to fight back.”
From the Chicago Tribune:
Like many recent college grads, Steven Lee finds himself unemployed in one of the roughest job markets in decades and saddled with a big pile of debt. He owes about $84,000 in student loans for undergrad and grad-school costs.
But what Lee’s angry about isn’t the slings and arrows of an outrageous economy, and it isn’t the idea that he owes a ton of money for all the learning he’s received. It’s the interest rates on his government-backed student loans, which range from 6.8 percent to 8.5 percent.
“The rate for a 30-year mortgage is around 5 percent,” Lee said. “Why should anyone have to pay 8.5 percent?”
Well, because a deal’s a deal, and that’s the rate Lee accepted when he received his loan.
“I disagree,” he replied. “The government has bailed out homeowners. It’s bailed out big businesses. Why can’t it also help students?”
From Kenyon Farrow at Grio:
When Obama delivered his “gay agenda” speech to the well-fed, well-scrubbed mostly white crowd of gays and lesbians at the Human Rights Campaign’s Annual Dinner on Saturday night, anyone outside of the LGBT community would have assumed by the applause that the entire “gay community” is in agreement that access to serve in the military, gay marriage, and hate crimes legislation are our primary issues. But in reality, HRC’s political agenda is not what I want. It does not speak for me, nor for the lives of many other black, poor and working class LGBT people.
Given the fact that we’re in a long recession where hundreds of thousands of jobs have been lost in almost every month of 2009, and national unemployment numbers are at nearly 10 percent, why are we not talking about the issues that most people are concerned about – health care and the economy – and their impact on the LGBT community? The truth is, for many people at that dinner who could afford the cheapest ticket at $250 a plate, jobs and wages are of little concern.
It’s not as though there is a lack of evidence that supports the idea that LGBT folks are impacted by poverty. A report on lesbian and gay poverty in the US by the Williams Institute this spring showed that lesbian and gay couples were as likely to be poor as straight couples, mostly due to the impact of race and gender.
Read the rest of the piece here.
Continue reading about Black working class gays left out of national gay rights agenda
From ABA Law Journal:
The state of New York has cut off unemployment benefits for a 2008 law grad after she reported collecting $1.30 a day in advertising income from her blog.
The lawyer, who allowed only her first name of Karin to be used, was laid off from her job at a New York City law firm after working there only six months, Forbes reports. Karin publishes a blog called STL Meal Deals highlighting dining bargains in St. Louis, where she moved to take advantage of more affordable rent.
The agency told Karin it’s investigating her business, and she won’t get any benefits while the probe is under way, the story says. State law provides that anyone who earns less than $405, the amount paid in weekly benefits, will have their checks reduced by 25 percent.
Continue reading about Lawyer Loses Unemployment Because of $1.30 Daily Blog Income
In 2004, Micheal Moore went on record:
I don’t agree with the copyright laws and I don’t have a problem with people downloading the movie and sharing it with people as long as they’re not trying to make a profit off my labour. I would oppose that. I do well enough already and I made this film because I want the world, to change. The more people who see it the better, so I’m happy this is happening. Is it wrong for someone who’s bought a film on DVD to let a friend watch it for free? Of course it’s not. It never has been and never will be. I think information, art and ideas should be shared.
I have yet to see Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story. The fact that Moore did not release his latest documentary under a Creative Commons License, in my view, undermines his credibility, motivation, intention, and message. It’s not like we have the technology to disseminate and distribute films to a wide audience for free.
My view is, if you’re going to criticize an economic system and advocate for a different, more justiciable economic system, then it behooves you as an activist, journalist, and filmmaker to operate within the structures of the more justiciable economic system — especially when those alternative structures already exist. Lead by example. Walk the walk. Get it? What was it that Mahatma Ghandi said, something about “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”
What gives Moore? Why isn’t your latest film released on the internet under a CC license? If you honestly oppose the oppressive structures of capitalism, then why do you continue to prop up those structures?
Continue reading about Michael Moore: pirate my film, please
From Renaissance Universal:
A look at how social ecologists picture the ideal society.
by Kenn Kassman
Social Ecologist theory maintains that only through the creation of a just and participatory society can a healthy and benign relationship to the natural world be developed. Presupposing that the domination of humans by humans preceded the domination of nature by humans, the Social Ecologist future is structured to eliminate all hierarchy and delegitimate all forms of discrimination. Every person is viewed as valuable to the community and worthy of community respect and mutual support. Social Ecologists argue that harmony can then be applied to ecological relationships.
IN THE 19TH CENTURY, the paramount moral challenge was slavery. In the 20th century, it was totalitarianism. In this century, it is the brutality inflicted on so many women and girls around the globe: sex trafficking, acid attacks, bride burnings and mass rape.
Yet if the injustices that women in poor countries suffer are of paramount importance, in an economic and geopolitical sense the opportunity they represent is even greater. “Women hold up half the sky,” in the words of a Chinese saying, yet that’s mostly an aspiration: in a large slice of the world, girls are uneducated and women marginalized, and it’s not an accident that those same countries are disproportionately mired in poverty and riven by fundamentalism and chaos. There’s a growing recognition among everyone from the World Bank to the U.S. military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff to aid organizations like CARE that focusing on women and girls is the most effective way to fight global poverty and extremism. That’s why foreign aid is increasingly directed to women. The world is awakening to a powerful truth: Women and girls aren’t the problem; they’re the solution.
Read the rest of the piece here.
Continue reading about The Women’s Crusade and Economic Inequities
Searching for Whitopia: An Improbable Journey to the Heart of White America
By Rich Benjamin
Hardcover, 368 pages, $24.99
Hyperion: New York
October 2009
… race, by itself, is no longer a basis for housing discrimination. Perhaps. The problem is, race never coms “by itself.” It comes with a voice, an appearance, a social manner, a profession, a marital status, a family background, a financial portfolio, and on. A “blemish” in any such category can then magnify a minority’s skin color, transforming his race from innocuous to ominous. This neighborhood’s liberal self-image notwithstanding, racial minorities are sized up by how closely we assimilate to the dominant white ethos; those whose speech, dress, or demeanor don’t conform to its discriminating taste are subject to negative assumptions.
Continue reading about Book review: Rich Benjamin’s “Searching for Whitopia”
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Continue reading about President Obama addresses Human Rights Campaign
Crains New York writes:
Not only does it come in at No.1 for the most liberal students, CUNY Law School also ranked No.1 among older students. It came in seventh for most diverse faculty and tenth for having the best professors.
As a CUNY Law alum, I can attest to the fact that the students at CUNY Law are very, very liberal, informed, and progressive. The students are also ethnically and economically diverse. The faculty, however, not so much. There are many female professors, many gay professors, but most of them are white. Very few professors, and folks in the administration are people of color. That is a problem for the most so-called “liberal” law school in the U.S.
Continue reading about CUNY Law Has the Most Liberal Students
The FTC has finally announced new regulations to take effect December 1, 2009 to rein in paid reviews and disinformation online. According to the AP:
The FTC will require that writers on the Web clearly disclose any freebies or payments they get from companies for reviewing their products. The commission also said advertisers featuring testimonials that claim dramatic results cannot hide behind disclaimers that the results aren’t typical.
The FTC said its commissioners voted 4-0 to approve the final guidelines, which had been expected. The guides are not binding law, but rather interpretations of law that hope to help advertisers comply with regulations. Violating the rules, which take effect Dec. 1, could result in various sanctions including a lawsuit.
[...]
For bloggers, the FTC stopped short of specifying how they must disclose conflicts of interest. Rich Cleland, assistant director of the FTC’s advertising practices division, said the disclosure must be “clear and conspicuous,” no matter what form it will take.
It’s about time the FTC stepped in.
Continue reading about FTC: Bloggers Must Disclose Paid Reviews
