From PR to Eternity


	About Me Matthew Watson is a consultant for Rainier PR, who blogs about his journey into the world of technology public relations. Matt's views and opinions are his own and do not represent those of his past, present or future employers. Archives April 2007 June 2007 July 2007 January 2008 February 2008 March 2008 April 2008 May 2008 June 2008 July 2008 August 2008 September 2008 October 2008 November 2008 My Links Facebook Flickr Linked In Twitter PR Blogs Drew Benvie Bryony Beynon Stuart Bruce Jöel Céré Simon Collister Brendan Cooper Stephen Davies Seth Godin Ian Green Jed Hallam Tom Harle Adam Lewis Tom Malcolm Ben Matthews Richard Millington Chris Norton Giles Shorthouse Natalie Smith Paul Stallard Philip Young PR Agencies Concept Communications Custard PR Lighthouse PR Mantra PR Rainier PR Loewy Group Blogs Earlin' Abuse IT PR Digital Lushes Spider Suse and the City The A to E: ePR eBook Wadds' Tech PR Other Links Caroline Rowe		F* OFF! Fake weblogs or flogs have finally been told to flog off. No longer just unethical PR practise, flogs will soon be illegal in the UK. Thanks to the 'Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008'** it will be against the law for companies to mislead the public with fake blogs from the 28th May. It's a great move and one which I hope will see the PR industry continue to move away from it's image of lies and spin. After all deceiving your customers can't be a fantastic way to encourage brand loyalty and trust. Or a great way to use a PR budget. Labels: blogging, consumer protection from unfair trading regulations, flogs, formby, matthew watson, public relations Posted by Matthew Watson on 3 Comments: Anonymous said... Here, here! Tuesday, April 15, 2008 11:48:00 PM aspire2enquire said... How and who will police that? And how do you define a fake blog. What if a real person is just lying? It definitely seems like a good move but isn't the nature of blogging the optional anonymity? Interesting stuff. Wednesday, April 16, 2008 1:53:00 AM Matthew Watson said... I'm not sure. It seems impossible to police. I suppose the only way to enforce it is to encourage people to make complaints about fake blogs and comments. But how can you actually tell the difference between a real blog and a fake blog? Perhaps it could be self-regulating but that might not work either. There's also the possibility that some might start fake blogs to bad mouth competitors. Or make negative comments on forums and review sites such as Amazon. This could border on libel depending on the comments. How anonymous is blogging really when you can still be traced through an IP address? Wednesday, April 16, 2008 2:08:00 AM Post a Comment Links to this post: <$BlogBacklinkTitle$> <$BlogBacklinkSnippet$> <$I18NPostedByBacklinkAuthor$> @ <$BlogBacklinkDateTime$> Create a Link << Home

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