In 2002, the US Federal Trade Commission issued landmark guidelines to search engines, to ensure they were make a clear distinction between their paid and unpaid listings. Now, the FTC has updated those guidelines, saying it has seen a “decline in compliance” since they were first issued.
The FTC posted the news today on its site, along with letters that were sent to over 20 general-purpose and specialty search engines. The move comes just over a year since I wrote to the FTC noting that there were several compliance issues I was seeing with search engines and its guidelines.
In particular, the letters have gone out to AOL, Ask, Bing, Blekko, Duck Duck Go, Google and Yahoo as general purpose search engines and 17 “of the most heavily trafficked” shopping, travel and local search engines, the FTC said. The FTC, when I asked, said it is not releasing what those 17 other services are, nor what sources were used to determine them. They likely include services like Kayak, Yelp and Nextag.
Every search engine got the same letter as the “sample” letter that’s shown on the FTC site, which starts out:
After the 2002 Search Engine Letter was issued, search engines embraced the letter’s guidance and distinguished any paid search results or other advertising on their websites. Since then, however, we have observed a decline in compliance with the letter’s guidance.
New Guidance On Visual Cues, Label & More
The original guidelines were designed to ensure consumers could know what was an ad or sponsored listing from “organic” or “free” or “editorial” or “natural” results on search engines. The updated guidelines still say the original principle of making this distinction applies but gives fresh advice on dealing with new issues that have come up since 2002. From the FTC press release:
The updated guidance emphasizes the need for visual cues, labels, or other techniques to effectively distinguish advertisements, in order to avoid misleading consumers, and it makes recommendations for ensuring that disclosures commonly used to identify advertising are noticeable and understandable to consumers.
The letter notes that over time, natural results have become harder to distinguish from ads, citing an SEO Book survey from last year that found, in general, about half the time people didn’t recognize when ads were present on search results pages.
Better Background Shading And/Or Borders For Ads
From the letter, concern background shading around ads may be “less visible” or “luminous” and effectively undetectable by consumers, when the purpose was designed expressly to distinguish ads with such shading. As a result, the FTC wants to ensure that there is:
More prominent shading that works across monitor and device types, or
A prominent border, or
Both
Text Labels
The letter generally says that in addition to visual cues like borders or backgrounds, search engines should have text labels that use unambiguous language that indicates what’s an ad, is large enough to be noticed and is located in an area where consumers will see it.
Search engines commonly do have such disclosure, but clearly, the FTC thinks these can be improved. In particular, it advises that:
Text labels “in front” perhaps meaning directly above or in the upper-left hand corner
The same terminology throughout “ads” rather than “ads” in one place and maybe some other word elsewhere
Siri, Is That An Ad?
Very interesting is a requirement that if a search engine delivers results via a voice interface, the FTC wants that voice to tell you if it’s reading an ad:
Further, if a voice interface is used to deliver search results, a search engine should make an audio disclosure that is of an adequate volume and cadence for ordinary listeners to hear and comprehend it
Facebook Graph Search, This Means You, Too
The original guidelines were applicable to any search engine, not just the major search engines that got letters back in 2002. The same is true for the updated guidelines. If it walks, talks, act and feels like a search engine, then these guidelines are applicable to the service, regardless if the FTC has been in touch directly.
That also means that if search results come out of social network, those also have to follow the rules. Facebook Graph Search is an example of this, which provides “natural” listings based on what people are liking on Facebook. The FTC warns that if such listings also include ads, those must be distinguished:
For example, if a social network were to stream recommended restaurants based on what a particular consumer’s social contacts have enjoyed, it should clearly distinguish as advertising any information feeds included or prioritized based in whole or in part on payments from a third party
The news has just gone up, so I’m live writing this now. When the story is finished, this line will be removed.