• by Shankar Gupta , February 14, 2007

Starting next year, companies advertising in the United Kingdom will have to steer clear of flogs, or phony blogs, and shill reviews, thanks to a new law passed by the British Parliament. But similar legislation in the United States doesn't appear likely, say some lawyers.

The British law, which takes effect on Dec. 31 2007, prohibits people from posting reviews of their own products under false names. The ban is sweeping enough to encompass authors who review their own books on sites like Amazon, as well as marketers who create phony blogs to promote their products.

Eric Goldman, director of the High Tech Law Institute at the Santa Clara University of Law, said that a similar law in the United States is unlikely. The First Amendment generally allows people to write under pseudonyms and, while so-called commercial speech is afforded less protection than non-commercial speech, distinguishing between the two isn't always easy, he said.

He predicted that it's far more likely that the FTC will set out broad guidelines and then follow those up with case-by-case holdings tailored to specific facts. "What we're going to see is these one-off regulatory solutions. We could have a very carefully crafted point solution to deal with faux blogging," he said. But, he added, marketers would probably find ways around such narrow rules. "It will be a very easy thing to game," he predicted.

In the last several months, several companies in the U.S. have landed in hot water for creating flogs, including Wal-Mart and Sony.