Beware Payola

This is actually an idea we’ve pondered at Uncharted: Finding a person, place or thing willing to pay us to promote them as, say, a wonderful place to visit, an outdoor guide/guru/shaman/whatever, or an altogether excellent bit of gear that is essential for any Explorer to have.

Seems we have some homework to do on it, as the Federal Trade Commission says this is a no-no, unless one says in highway-style lettering that said content is bought and paid for.

According to Forbes (via CNNmoney.com) this is a big issue for social media folks like us who are all gung-ho on making money but dumb enough not to think clearly about the legal implications.

The gist of these stories is that disclosure – easy enough to accomplish on a blog posting, or, say, on a story at Uncharted – isn’t as easy to do with limited-character social media like Twitter and Foursquare. Still, the whole concept bears keeping in mind as we ponder what we have to outline as policy at Uncharted in order to stay on the right side of the law.