NEW GUIDES EFFECTIVE DECEMBER 1, 2009

BLOGGERS, AFFILIATES AND NETWORK MARKETERS SHOULD KNOW AND FOLLOW THE NEW GUIDES TO AVOID POTENTIAL LIABILITY

WHO IS COVERED:

            1.  Bloggers, Internet Affiliates, Users of Facebook, Twitter and Social Media, as well as Television, Print, and Radio Advertisers

WHAT IS COVERED:

            1.  Endorsements and Testimonials of any product, service, company or industry.

            2. Both endorsements and testimonials are defined as “any advertising message (including verbal statements, demonstrations, or depictions of the name, signature, likeness or other identifying personal characteristics of an individual or the name or seal of an organization) that consumers are likely to believe reflects the opinions, beliefs, findings, or experiences of a party other than the sponsoring advertiser, even if the views expressed by that party are identical to those of the sponsoring advertiser.

To learn more please click here:

 http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/10/endortest.shtm

                                   or http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/10/endortest.shtm

QUICK SUMMARY OF THESE NEW GUIDES EFFECTS:

In a nutshell - they are no big deal.  The primary goal of the new guides is to make certain that endorsements and testimonials truly are the honest opinion of the endorser. Additionally, the FTC intends that consumers are given information that reveals any financial connection between products and services and the people who promote them with testimonials and endorsements.    This is the right thing to do anyway and most honorable marketers already provide such ethical disclosures in thier own unique ways.

These guides and the FTC Act now clearly apply to bloggers, internet marketing affiliates and social media and network marketers.  If you reach the buying public in any manner with your message for profit or gain in any form, you you should assume you are covered.  Go to my website for a free Special Report on the Guides.

The FTC proclaims that it will determine coverage on a case by case basis, since a steadfast hard line rule would be almost impossible to draw that would cover all scenarios, especially as new consumer generated or viewed media develop.  The FTC will measure deception by what a consumer will perceive from the ad.

If an advertiser or promoter does not have verifiable data that demonstrates the typical results a consumer might experience, then the testimonial or endorsement should be restricted to a general endorsement specific to the endorser, something along the lines of  “the best investment I ever made.”  But be sure that your endorser truly means it.

In regards to internet affiliates, the advertisers or product and service providers who contract with the affiliates should address these matters of disclosures in their agreements.  The task of monitoring bloggers and social media users could prove impossible, but a good faith attempt at compliance as always will go a long way toward protecting against enforcement risk and liability.

Be conservative and fully disclose every relationship until such time as some enforcement cases make their way through the legal cycle. 

Consult competent legal counsel for specific advice and analysis regarding your particular situation.

If you have eBooks that have affiliate links in them, you need to include affiliate disclosures in the eBook.

ENFORCEMENT FACTS:

Ø  FTC takes consumer and competitor complaints on line or by telephone.

Ø  FTC reports to over 1700 civil and criminal law enforcement agencies

Ø  Penalties include $10,000 fine for each violation

Ø  Criminal conviction and imprisonment for false statements in investigation and other infractions of the law

Ø  THIS IS A GATEWAY LAW: An investigation will likely lead to charges of violating other competition or consumer related laws.

Here’s to your legal protection- May you always be and remain legal disaster free!

                                         Marjorie Jobe

Federal prosecutors have been terrorizing innocent business men and women all over the country for the past 15 years, ruining careers, lives, families and companies.  Witness the Aurthur Anderson case in which the Supreme Court reversed the federal convictions of the defunct company many years after it imploded due to the fact that the supposed illegal acts the accounting firm and its employees were accused of doing were not crimes.  How about the KPMG case?  Another creative and unconstitutional stretch by ambitious and zealous prosecutors.

Pending already are 40 ongoing financial inquiries into major corporations and 2,400 FBI investigations into alleged mortgage fraud cases.  The new task force will likely dramatically expand this reach toward financial, mortgage, brokerage, banking and other related companies and their managers, officers, and employees. 

This is an unwarranted, political grandstanding crusade out to stop Wall Street fraud when had the government officials on guard at the time been doing their jobs, the financial meltdown would have been avoided.

Financial businesses everywhere beware. Know your rights and most of all, retain an experienced, qualified criminal law specialist to represent you in developing and implementing a government criminal investigation policy and educational program.  Train your employees on their rights and responsibilities in an investigatory situation.  Should trouble come knocking, you and your company will be prepared to cooperate in a meaningful way while avoiding subjecting you and your employees to unnecessary legal risk and exposure in the form of obstruction of justice or false statements for innocent, uninformed actions and discussions. 

And if the government comes around, retain the best criminal defense specialist you can find immediately.  Regular run of the mill business lawyers will get you indicted and convicted.

May you always be and remain lawsuit free.

Marjorie Jobe

339 pending cases were resolved resulting in a total of $102.2 Million Dollars being assessed against those employers during 2008. This makes an average of $279,000 per resolved case. This kind of jury award can sink or destroy a small business. You can review the full report of EEOC statistics at www.eeoc.gov/statistics.

Could your business or company could pay a $279,000 jury verdict in today’s bad economy? Could your business afford the litigation costs which such a case would definitely require and which could easily exceed the jury award? If the answer is no, then you should immediately assess your legal risks and your personnel policies and give them a tune up. I have prepared a free checklist of simple legal tools that protect businesses from legal risks and threats. My goal is to help you and every business owner and manager I can reach to keep these kinds of legal disasters from happening to you or your family. Download my checklist at www.marjoriejobe.com/newsletter.htm to determine what policies and legal tools can help you protect your business and family from lawyers, lawsuits and legal disasters. Do it today and you will be on closer to preventing and avoiding lawsuits and legal disputes.

1. Negotiate a flat fee and require that the lawyer itemize the tasks he or she will perform for that flat fee.

2. Negotiate a hybrid fee that combines a capped dollar amount with a contingency fee if successful.

3. Negotiate a contingency fee where the lawyer only gets paid if the case is won.

4. Request a discount off of the normal hourly fee due to your limited funds.

5. Trade out services or products – offer to pay the lawyer with your products or services.

6. Perform some of the paperwork or documentary organization yourself or with your own staff. The more work you can do analyzing the evidence, accumulating it, creating charts and explanations or other kind of paperwork, the less your lawyer will have to do and thus the less you will have to pay.

7. If you are paying by the hour, request monthly statements and examine them carefully. Lawyers are notorious for billing months later and overbilling by entering the same tasks more than once.

8. Request a budget from the lawyer that includes estimates for the different stages of the case. There is no sure way to know ahead of time exactly what a case will involved but an experienced lawyer can usually come close to estimating the overall components and the likely costs and expenses. Watch the fee statements in contrast to the budget and ask questions about any differences.

9. Ask your lawyer what you can do to keep your fees to a minimum. You may be surprised by how cooperative the lawyer is with finding creative ways to satisfy any constraints or concerns.

10. Secure legal documents from reliable online or retail published sources, make the changes you think are necessary for your own objectives and then ask a lawyer to review the documents rather than creating them from scratch.

Good lawyers care about their clients and their client’s limitations. Do not hesitate to address the money issues up front and look for solutions that work for you both.

Stay Lawsuit Free!

Marjorie Jobe

The steps and actions that Neil advocates are the very keys to success in operating, growing and leading a business. With real world case examples and laser like focus on his message, Neil drives every essential point home and motivates the reader to get started without delay.

From a legal perspective, the strategies laid out in this book will add a layer of protection from legal risks of all kinds in that your business will be tighter, your employees happier and your customers satisfied.

Read this book, keep it on your desk, buy multiple copies and pass them out. Your return will be immeasurable.

Stay Lawsuit Free!!

Marjorie Jobe

Check out Neil and his book at http://www.nocompromiseleadership.com 

Stay ahead of the opportunists and legal threats by reviewing your business operations for legal weaknesses.

1. Update your employee policies

2. Review your employee firing guidelines and practices

3. Read contracts carefully and always give yourself an out

4. Apologize when you makw a mistake

5.  Use arbitration provisions in your contracts

These are just a few of the actions you can take to stay ahead of the lawyers.

Here’s to staying lawsuit free in 2009 and beyond!!

Marjorie Jobe

A client of mine, Guido Pathak, who owns and operates a small urban diner in El Paso had an obvious and terrific insight last week while I was eating lunch.  If our government would provide economic stimulus and incentives to small business, immediate jobs and new business activity would result.  No need for long drawn out plans, forecasts, board or management approval – we can act immediately.  Give us capital gains incentives, payroll tax breaks and capital access and we will produce new jobs and infuse money into the system. Today and tomorrow and the next day, not a year from now.

Small businesses are the answer.  We know it, we are ready and we can deliver.

Instead of wringing our hands and freezing our innovations and expansions, as entrepreneurs and business owners, we should acknowledge our present national downturn, adjust our operations accordingly but embrace the recession by pressing onward with our business growth and product/service creation.  Making our business mean and lean with the trimming of unnecessary expenses or loss of focus, can offset the decrease in business movement nationally and allow us to proceed with any plans to create more business opportunities.

Entrepreneurs and small business owners respond faster and more efficiently to the change in the business climate, thus allowing them to compete more effectively with the larger companies that must seek board approval or other endorsement of strategic shifts in operations.  Small businesses can generally also operate at a much lesser level of capital requirement making them more competitive in a liquidity crunch in our banking system.

Certainly, the credit crisis and decrease in economic activity will touch all of us and can lead to catastrophic consequences for businesses that were on the edge or cash flow challenged when the recession began last year.  However, overall, the recession will hold certain advantages for small business owners and operators.

The recession opportunities for the small business include the following:

1.       Solidifying customer, vendor and supplier loyalty with continuing transactions.

2.       Reviewing operations to identify the financial excesses or unnecessary spending.

3.       Discovering new methods of operations to save money.

4.       Searching for ways to answer your customer’s needs in an economic downturn.

5.       Finding ways to fortify your company from legal risks as former, fired or laid off employees and plaintiff lawyers look for sources of money and income. Lawsuits almost always increase when the economy suffers.

The recession is here.  There is no denying the unfortunate reality.  Be true to your entrepreneur roots: Embrace it and turn it into your business advantage. 

Marjorie Jobe