Two weeks ago, the Federal Trade Commission issued a long “enforcement policy statement” on native advertising.
If you want to read all 16 pages, be my guest (PDF). If you want a summary, here goes: The days of playing fast and easy in native advertising are over.
Many of the findings in the FTC statement will result in native advertising becoming less effective, because — surprise! — the FTC wants native ads to be clearly labeled and formatted to look like ads, not content. Here are a few relevant parts of the FTC statement:
