Fake Bloggers to be Exposed

So PR professionals who pose as customers to blog for clients are to face court proceedings.

According to the front page story on this week's PR Week, fake blogging is likely to be made illegal under the EU's Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, due to pass into UK law on 31 December 2007.

The directive will apparently prohibit "unfair commercial practices" including "falsely representing oneself as a consumer".

PR Week couldn't help but bring up the Edelman/Wal-Mart story again - even though by my reading of the directive it's not relevant. As far as I know, no Edelman employees actually tried to represent themselves as a consumer.

One can only hope that it will also put paid to PR agency staff appearing in newspapers and on TV as "case studies".

Published 09 February 2007 09:48 by Niall Cook

Filed under: Reputation

Comments

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  Fake blogs to become illegal in UK | Simon Wakeman - Marketing, public relations and digital communications said:

  PingBack from http://www.simonwakeman.com/2007/02/09/fake-blogs-to-become-illegal-in-uk/
  February 9, 2007 20:56
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  Simon Wakeman said:

  Niall Cook points out a story in this week’s UK PR Week magazine - about a piece of European law set to be enacted in the UK at the end of the year that will outlaw fake blogs and other dubious PR practices.
  ...
  February 9, 2007 20:56
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  A Wider Net » Marketing Technology » » Blog Archive » Fake Blogging May Become Illegal in UK? said:

  PingBack from http://www.awidernet.com/2007/02/12/fake-blogging-may-become-illegal-in-uk/
  February 12, 2007 14:50
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  Brad Hinton said:

  One can also hope for an end to those conference presentations (usually vendors) that are publicised as actual conference papers rather than elongated advertisements. They are the product placements of the conference circuit!

  April 23, 2007 15:10