Regulating the Bloggers?

This from AP's Deborah Yao:

Savvy consumers often go online for independent consumer reviews of products and services, scouring through comments from everyday Joes and Janes to help them find a gem or shun a lemon.
What some fail to realize, though, is that such reviews can be tainted: Many bloggers have accepted perks such as free laptops, trips to Europe, $500 gift cards or even thousands of dollars for a 200-word post. Bloggers vary in how they disclose such freebies, if they do so at all.
The practice has grown to the degree that the Federal Trade Commission is paying attention. New guidelines, expected to be approved late this summer with possible modifications, would clarify that the agency can go after bloggers — as well as the companies that compensate them — for any false claims or failure to disclose conflicts of interest.

John Cole:

I’ll take a free trip to Europe or thousands of dollars for a 200-word post. Hell, I bet I’ve already sold more furminators than PetCo.

James Joyner at OTB has a good write up on the problems with the proposed regulation. Updates at the end of the post link to several other write ups exposing the problematic nature of the propsed regulation.

For the record I will accept any offers to write a few hundred words for thousands of dollars. I could be persuaded to write something nice about our former President for sufficient remuneration.

Now that we've established what I am, let's talk about price.