Social Media and Mobile Advertising Needs Proper Disclosure, FTC Says

"Our new guidelines focus on two trends - one, the movement toward advertising seen on small screens and how you make disclosures useful, clear and conspicuous to consumers," said Commissioner Maureen Ohlhausen in New Orelans at the 4As conference, "and two, the use of social media for marketing." "All the regulatory agencies are desperately trying to catch on with the reality of the mobile ecosystem," explained John Simpson, Privacy Project director at Consumer Watchdog, cited by USA Today. "It's really important that they've taken that step. Whether the FTC can keep up with a lot of practices is still an open question. It's very easy to capitalize on the big names in social media. "