• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, April 2, 2019

The Federal Trade Commission is warning jewelry sellers over their social media ads for lab-created diamonds.

“Several Instagram and Twitter advertisements depict or reference diamond jewelry without clearly and conspicuously disclosing that the diamonds are laboratory created,” FTC associate director James Kohm says in letters sent to eight marketers.

Kohm adds that even though a hashtag #labgrowndiamonds appeared in some ads, the companies didn't “clearly and conspicuously” disclose that the diamonds weren't mined. The agency also said that even though marketers' webpages referred to lab-created diamonds, those disclosures weren't close enough to the product descriptions.

The letter comes around nine months after the FTC revised its guides to jewelry marketers. The agency says marketers should disclose when “diamonds” are created in labs, and that the disclosures should be “clear, prominent, and understandable.”

“Generally, to make disclosures clear and prominent, marketers should use plain language and sufficiently large type, place disclosures in close proximity to the qualified claim, and avoid making inconsistent statements or using distracting elements that could undercut or contradict the disclosure,” the guides say.

The FTC urged the marketers to “review your marketing materials, both on Instagram and in any other medium,” with an eye toward the agency's guidance. The agency has also asked the letter recipients say by April 8 how they plan to revise their marketing.