I agree completely that “There are gray areas like junkets and conference fees etc., but taking money in exchange for content placement and not disclosing it is unethical. This is so whether it’s done by a newspaper, a blog, or any other type of publication.”

But I think the FTC’s enforcement plan will catch very few of the people who violate the ethical standards (they’ll simply move to non-US-based blogs) while frightening, censoring, and silencing a lot of very ethical online writers who would rather not tangle with the federal government and and risk incurring the expenses of being investigated or unjustly accused.

“…you can simply ignore those blogs whose opinions you suspect have been tainted.”

It’s this “caveat emptor” approach that’s drawing the FTC’s attention and giving the blogosphere a bad name. It’s entirely up to the reader to determine whether the information is really a paid ad. The likely result, is that people will be over cautious at the expense of not reading some legitimate blogs.

Ideally, people should know when the content they’re reading is basically an advertisement.

While the definition of “sponsorship” may vary, I disagree with the notion that articles regularly appear in the newspaper as a result of someone “paying” for it to appear there.

There are gray areas like junkets and conference fees etc., but taking money in exchange for content placement and not disclosing it is unethical. This is so whether it’s done by a newspaper, a blog, or any other type of publication.

Well, relatively comfortable. Not particularly happy about it, but relatively comfortable. Because many newspaper articles are sponsored, and have been for years.

With the exception of papers like the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, papers routinely publish stories that are the results of junkets, guided tours, PR events disguised as conferences…and on it goes. Feature writers get press passes to attend expensive events free (and get front row seats). Editors assign reporters to cover arts events given by organizations on whose boards the publisher’s family sits.

The difference between sponsored articles in newspapers and sponsored articles on blogs is that the newspaper is usually the only show in town — you don’t have a choice of which one you read for local coverage. With blogs, on the other hand, there’s plenty of choice and you can simply ignore those blogs whose opinions you suspect have been tainted.