I regularly read Mrs D’s magazine from the Chartered Institute of Marketers. Its really interesting the crossover between collaboration and the technologies they discuss there. Anyhow, without wibbling on the “Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2007” came into force here on May 28th. The review of the legislation by Anna Montes of Osborne Clark suggested that it would now be illegal in England to:
- Positively review your own products on a peer review web site
- Purposely logging on and registering with a competitors website using a personal email address
- Communicating positively in a blog (either post or comments) without making it clear you work for the brand or are an agent for the brand
- Running fake blogs (flogs)
Its interesting that we possibly all could fall foul, especially those of us who work for large organisations and may blog positively about a product or service without stating that our employers have a strategic partnership with the vendor. I’m sure there is a lot of gray which will be sorted out in the courts.
Stu Downes 
Interesting, yet more reason for transparency.
I guess what it comes down to is ethics. And from the persective of reputation management, makes it more important that employeers provide good guidance and support to their employees who blog.
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