Merchant Supplied Content can end your career in jail !! - U.K

The source of this article is day trip media. I am still looking into the matter and will post more details when I am through with it. Yesterday I cam across day trip media blog run by David Lloyd who use to work for BBC.

According to the latest amendments made and laws tat have been passed webmasters seem to be in trouble - serious trouble. It came into effect on the 26th May and prevents companies from using unfair and misleading tactics to advertise their products and services. Accordingly the companies running online business and marketing online are legally banned from

“Using editorial content in the media to promote a product where a trader has paid for the promotion without making that clear in the content or by images or sounds clearly identifiable by the consumer.”

It comes under UCPD - Unfair Commercial Practices Directive which is seriously a toll on affiliate marketers and webmasters the way they work. So now you are not allowed seeding positive comments in your blogs articles as well well fake blogs created for the sole purpose of promoting the merchants product/service. But this does not mean that after every link that you create you have to mention the fact that you are affiliated with the merchant according to what I understand from this -

However, Hyperlaunch head of buzz marketing Simon Quanse says the new regulations will only have the potential to affect those using “underhand” buzz marketing techniques.

“There are some agencies that do not have the maturity, openness and respectfulness to engage with people in the right way,” says Quanse. “As a result, the whole industry suffers.”

So is it really safe using content and material provided by them on our sites that speaks nothing but positive things about the product/service ?? The long and short of it is that now you are supposed to disclose the fact that the content that you are publishing for promoting the product/service of the merchant provided by the merchant is for the sole purpose of marketing the product/service and also disclose in clear words your relationship with the merchant - affiliation.

So thousands and maybe millions of webmasters in UK seem to be breaking these laws without even having the slightest idea that they breaking laws - some are even in the dark about the existence of these new regulations that came into effect recently.

Although the laws have been framed in the interest of the society and people who tend to believe on these contents and shop online but it will seriously take a toll on online and business and affiliate marketing.

However it is still too early to jump to any predictions. Lets wait for further developments and see how the UK webmasters are reacting to it.

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