A story by Emily Friedman, a reporter for ABC News (found here) covered the possibility of the Federal Trade Commission suing bloggers for their opinions.
Mommy bloggers make up a huge portion of the blogosphere and are a very influential target for companies looking to have their products endorsed. Many companies send their products to these bloggers for review (sound familiar??) in hopes that other mommy bloggers will read the review and go purchase their product, starting a chain reaction in the blogosphere of consumers purchasing and reviewing the product.
This is extremely similar to what many wineries are doing right now with wine bloggers. My personal opinion is that wine bloggers are the most passionate group of wine drinkers in the U.S. and as such purchase a great deal of wine. As a wine blogger I read as many blogs by other wine bloggers as I can. I see all of the reviews and if one is particularly enthusiastic about the wine and I see it on the shelf I am much more likely to purchase it. That is one of the reasons I picked up the bottle of the Hahn Estates Meritage and then wrote about it.
The idea that the government might come after me for reviewing a product is very scary, although I think it very improbable. There are currently hundreds of wine blogs (as I am sure there are nearing thousands of mommy blogs). To come after each blog because of what they said would be a very hefty chore.
Read the article and comment below. I would be very interested on what the rest of the wine bloggers think.
18 hours ago
