FTC Announces New Online Advertising Disclosure Guidelines: How to Make Effective Disclosures in Digital Advertising

The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) released new guidelines for online advertising to include mobile ads on social networking sites. The new regulations are the first revisions in thirteen years to the agency’s original guidelines, now entitled “.com Disclosures: How to Make Effective Disclosures in Digital Advertising,” which explains how to make disclosures clear and conspicuous to avoid deception. The new guidelines detail more specific rules for “space-constrained” ads, such as those seen on social media platforms like Twitter. The FTC advises marketers to avoid transferring such disclosures through pop-ups, because they are often blocked. “When a space-constrained ad requires a disclosure, incorporate the disclosure into the ad whenever possible. However, when it is not possible to make a disclosure in a space-constrained ad, it may, under some circumstances, be acceptable to make the disclosure clearly and conspicuously on the page to which the ad links,” says the FTC.