America's Internet police

You may have won $10 million dollars!!! Or not, but the same federal agency that can't stop those dishonest sweepstakes mailings wants the right to supervise everything bloggers, Facebookers, tweeters and practically anyone else writes on the Internet starting in December. You see, bad, bad regular people may write something nice about puppy kibble after nefarious corporate goons pay them off with a free bag of dog food. Consumers must be protected from such trickery. The plans of the Federal Trade Commission don't bother us newspaper folks none because we're exempt. Our book reviewers can keep right on taking free books, and our music reviewers can wallow in a torrent of freebie music downloads until their iPods explode. But if you readers do the same thing and fail to disclose the full details of your "financial relationship" with a "marketer" before you tweet, both you and the book publisher may have broken the law, resulting in fines of more than $10,000...read more