About a year ago, the SEC issued a warning to celebrities and social influencers who promoted Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) on social media, noting that such promoters are subject to federal securities laws. Apparently, at least two celebrities weren’t paying attention because they recently settled the SEC’s first cases regarding promoting ICOs without proper disclosures.
Native Advertising
BBB Accountability Program Warns Native Advertisers
Earlier this week, the BBB’s Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program announced its first compliance warning concerning the use of interest-based advertising in native advertising. “Native advertising” generally includes ads presented in the native format of the website, publication, or platform on which they appear. Although the BBB declined to mention the identity of the recipient,…
New NAD Decision on Native Advertising Focuses on Disclosures
If you saw these links under an article you just finished reading, would you be surprised to learn that the links are sponsored? The NAD thinks you might.
Taboola is an advertising network that purchases space from online publishers on behalf of its clients, places ads in those spaces, and earns money based on the…
Native Advertising Blunder Gets Media Attention
Readers of our blog know that if a company provides people incentives to promote its products, the company needs to ensure those people clearly disclose their relationship to the company. But (for reasons we’re still investigating) not everyone reads this blog, and not everyone is aware of this requirement.
Microsoft recently signed a sponsored content…
FTC Attempts to Sharpen the Blurred Lines of Native Ads at Workshop
Yesterday, the FTC held a workshop to discuss legal issues surrounding the blending of ads with other content in digital media — sometimes called “native advertising” or “sponsored content.” From a marketing perspective, one benefit of this strategy is that ads may look more like content and, therefore, attract more consumer attention. But many regulators…
Blurred Lines: The Legal Risks Surrounding Native Advertising
This afternoon, the FTC announced the panelists for its upcoming workshop on Native Advertising. The term “native advertising” generally refers to ads that are presented in the native format of the website, publication, or platform in which they appear. Consider, for example, an advertorial on a news site, paid results on a search engine, or…