Best of the Best?

The Office of Fair Trading, the consumer rights watchdog has taken enforcement action against a blogging network which did not make it clear that companies were paying it for writing promotional content about them.

Handpicked Media Ltd. operates a network of sites purporting to offer editorial coverage of fashion, beauty, music and lifestyle subjects. The OFT said, though, that it investigated the network on suspicion that the coverage was not independent but was the result of payment to it.

“The OFT was concerned that individuals engaged by Handpicked Media were publishing online content which promoted the activities of Handpicked Media’s clients, without sufficient disclosures in place to make it clearly identifiable to consumers that the promotions had been paid for,” said an OFT statement. “This included publication on website blogs and microblogs (for example Twitter).”

The OFT considered that this breached the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (CPRs) and required Handpicked Media Ltd, to sign undertakings that it would not repeat the unfair conduct and will in future, clearly identify when promotional comments have been paid for. (The CPRs protect consumers from unfair commercial practices which would lead them to take a purchasing decision that they would otherwise not have taken.)

The action, which the OFT says sets a precedent, is of interest to organisations which use third-party blogs and advertorials (advertising features that look like articles) to promote their goods and services, as well as organisations that charge other organisations to appear in their “best of directories”.

“Through the signed undertakings, [Handpicked Media] has agreed not to engage in promotional activity unless bloggers within its network prominently disclose, in a manner unavoidable to the average consumer, that the promotion has been paid for or otherwise remunerated,” the OFT statement said.