Digital Marketing – FTC Guardian

US FTC stops internet marketers from giving deceptive free trial offers

Allyn Cutts — Thu, 02 Aug 2018 00:14:54 +0000

US FTC stops internet marketers from giving deceptive free trial offers

A federal district court has granted the Federal Trade Commission’s request to stop a group of San Diego-based Internet marketers from deceptively advertising free trial offers and not only charging consumers full-price for the trial product but also enrolling them in expensive, ongoing continuity plans without their knowledge or consent. The court order announced today temporarily halts the operation, freezes its assets, and appoints a temporary receiver over the business.

According to the FTC’s complaint, the defendants market and sell a variety of products online, including skin creams, electronic cigarettes, and dietary supplements. Advertising through third-party websites, blog posts, and surveys, the defendants allegedly offer consumers “RISK FREE” trials of products such as “Wrinkle Rewind,” “Erase Repair H/A,” “Pro Vapor,” “Cerebral X,” “Test X Core,” and “Garcinia Clean XT.”

In addition, the FTC alleges the defendants use deceptive order confirmation pages to trick consumers into ordering additional products, for which the defendants similarly charge consumers full price and enroll them in negative-option plans. The defendants then make it difficult to cancel the continuity plan, stop or avoid the recurring charges, or obtain a refund.

Read the full article here.

Here’s How To Make Sure You, Your Business and Website Are FTC & GDPR Compliant

By now it should be clear how important it is for you to be FTC compliant. But how can you do that without spending $7,500-$8,000 or more on Internet Attorneys?

Smart business owners around the world are doing it with the help of FTC Guardian.

FTC Guardian is a service that is 100% focused on helping to keep you get and stay FTC & GDPR compliant and fully protected. And right now, we are offering a free training to give you the knowledge, information, and guidance that you need to stay out of trouble with the Federal Trade Commission and the new GDPR guidelines.

Free Compliance Workshop: Join Chip Cooper, Esq., the #1 FTC Compliance & GDPR trainer in the World, for a one-of-kind, completely free online compliance workshop.

Workshops fill up quickly, so register now.

Here are some of the things you’ll discover on the training:

Real-Life Examples of People Who Didn’t Think They Were At Risk, But Who Got Nailed By The FTC, And Why It Could Happen To You, Too

The 3 Enormous Powers The FTC Has That Can Change Your Life – And Your Family’s Life – Forever!

How to Avoid FTC Claims When Collecting Leads With Optin Forms

3 Privacy Policy Mistakes Every Digital Marketer Is Making, And Why You’re In The FTC Crosshairs.

And Much More…

Remember: legal protection is a massively important part of your business, and it’s one you cannot afford to ignore any longer.

Go here to register for our next FREE training and make your business is FTC compliant today!

Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It’s not legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship is created. Neither the author nor FTC Guardian, Inc. is endorsed by the Federal Trade Commission.

The 7 Legal Rules Your Emails Must Follow

Allyn Cutts — Sun, 20 May 2018 16:24:16 +0000

The 7 Legal Rules Your Emails Must Follow

By Susan Gunelius

As an email marketer, you need to comply with laws that were put in place to protect consumers. While it might be tempting to buy a list of email addresses and just start sending messages to everyone on that list, this is a bad idea for a few reasons.

First, you might be breaking the law. Second, you might be hurting your chances of your future email marketing messages getting into people's email inboxes, including inboxes belonging to your own customers. The bottom line is, your actions as an email marketer can affect the deliverability of your email today and in the future.

The cost for noncompliance can be very high, particularly since you can be charged penalties for each separate email violation up to $40,654. Furthermore, if your email messages violate other laws, such as those related to deceptive advertising, you could face even more fines or criminal penalties, including imprisonment.

Read the full article and learn more about Compliance here.

Here’s How To Make Sure You, Your Business & Website Is FTC Compliant

By now it should be clear how important it is for you to be FTC compliant. But how can you do that without spending $7,500-$8,000 or more on Internet Attorneys?

Smart business owners around the world are doing it with the help of FTC Guardian.

FTC Guardian is a service that is 100% focused on helping to keep you get and stay FTC compliant and fully protected. And right now, we are offering a free training to give you the knowledge, information, and guidance that you need to stay out of trouble with the Federal Trade Commission.

Free Compliance Workshop: Join Chip Cooper, Esq., the #1 FTC Compliance trainer in the World, for a one-of-kind, completely free online compliance workshop. Workshops fill up quickly, so register now.

Here are some of the things you’ll discover on the training:

Real-Life Examples of People Who Didn’t Think They Were At Risk, But Who Got Nailed By The FTC, And Why It Could Happen To You, Too

The 3 Enormous Powers The FTC Has That Can Change Your Life – And Your Family’s Life – Forever!

How to Avoid FTC Claims When Collecting Leads With Optin Forms

3 Privacy Policy Mistakes Every Digital Marketer Is Making, And Why You’re In The FTC Crosshairs.

And Much More…

Remember: legal protection is a massively important part of your business, and it’s one you cannot afford to ignore any longer.

Go here to register for our next FREE training and make your business is FTC compliant today!

OUCH! Did You Know? You Don’t Own Your Website Anymore!

Allyn Cutts — Fri, 06 Jan 2017 21:50:22 +0000

OUCH! Did You Know?

You Don't Own Your Website Anymore!

(Even Though You Paid For It!!)

By Chip Cooper, Esq.

What could be more in your business than ownership?

And what exactly is at the heart of your business – ownership of your valuable intellectual property.

And it involves outsourcing – the hiring of an independent contractor to develop valuable intellectual property for your business, such as:

your website,
your sales page,
your software,
your articles,

These are all examples of what intellectual property attorneys call “copyrightable authorship”.

And if you’re like most businesses, you probably assume that if you pay the contractor to create this stuff, you own it. Right?

Wrong, in most cases, in my experience in the trenches of my full-time Internet law practice. And here’s why.

The “Work Made For Hire Rules”

It’s all about the “work made for hire” rules of the U.S. Copyright Act.

Boiled down to its essence, here’s what the Copyright Act says:

“you will own the copyrights embodied in “copyrightable authorship”, created by your independent contractor (i.e. the person or entity who creates the work product), only if all three of these elements are satisfied:

there is a written “instrument” (typically an agreement or contract),
that is signed by the independent contractor, and
which provides that the work product is a “work made for hire”.

And if any of these three elements is not satisfied, your independent contractor owns the work product, by default.

And that’s the result… even if you pay for it, in full!

All you get is a non-exclusive right to use the work product.

And it’s even questionable if you have rights to modify the work product.

You’d be surprised at how many business owners I see in my Internet law practice who are shocked to discover that they don’t own what they incorrectly assumed to be their valuable intellectual property.

And you’d be even more surprised at the cost in legal fees (and there’s no way to attach a value to the cost of headaches and anxiety involved) for resolving messes regarding ownership.

For example, work made for hire clauses should be in your agreements with contractors, including:

consulting agreements,
development agreements, and
services agreements.

And if you make the mistake of not providing for work made for hire at the beginning of your relationship with a contractor, you’ll need these agreements to “reel in” the copyrights:

a copyright assignment, or
a website ownership and transfer agreement.

So, now you have a better understanding of the old cliché – that ignorance of the law is no excuse!

Life is so much easier if you understand the basic legal rules, plus have the required legal tools and documents at your fingertips.

So, What Do You Do If You’ve Run Afoul of Work Made For Hire?

The short answer is – you need to have the outsourcer sign a copyright assignment in your favor. This will have the effect of transferring the copyrights to you or your business.

If your outsourcer has completed the work, and there will be no future revisions or additions, then a straight forward copyright assignment will work.

However, if the outsourcer makes future revisions or additions, then you will need an additional clause transferring and assigning copyrights to these future works, to become effective automatically upon creation.

Here’s How To Make Sure You, Your Business & Website Is FTC Compliant

By now it should be clear how important it is for you to be FTC compliant. But how can you do that without spending $7,500-$8,000 or more on Internet Attorneys?

Smart business owners around the world are doing it with the help of FTC Guardian.

Here are some of the things you’ll discover on the training:

Real-Life Examples of People Who Didn’t Think They Were At Risk, But Who Got Nailed By The FTC, And Why It Could Happen To You, Too

The 3 Enormous Powers The FTC Has That Can Change Your Life – And Your Family’s Life – Forever!

How to Avoid FTC Claims When Collecting Leads With Optin Forms

3 Privacy Policy Mistakes Every Digital Marketer Is Making, And Why You’re In The FTC Crosshairs.

And Much More…

Remember: legal protection is a massively important part of your business, and it’s one you cannot afford to ignore any longer.

Go here to register for our next FREE training and make your business is FTC compliant today!

What Monopoly Can Teach Marketers About Customer Loyalty and Advocacy

Allyn Cutts — Tue, 01 Sep 2015 22:50:14 +0000

What Monopoly Can Teach Marketers About Customer Loyalty and Advocacy

A feel-good Friday share! What a great example and testament to what happens when an iconic brand makes Customer Loyalty and Advocacy a top priority and uses the power of social media for good!

At the ClickZ Live Conference in San Francisco, speakers from leading brands and agencies gathered to share best practices in all areas of digital marketing. Aside from the main themes revolving around mobile and data that are top of mind for every marketer at the moment, one less obvious theme kept coming up: customer loyalty and advocacy.ƒ

Customer advocacy is crucial to any brand’s success, however, the value of converting brand loyalty into long-term customer advocacy is a every marketer’s dream.

Kathryn Cianfrocca, Director of Global Digital Marketing at Hasbro, shared how the company took Monopoly, an 80-year-old game, and brought it back to life by re-igniting brand passion with a little help of storytelling and their loyal customers.

Monopoly, created in 1935 on a kitchen table, has sold more than 275 million games in 111 countries and in 43 languages. Hasbro faced the challenge of crafting a story that captured the hearts and minds of its followers. Thus the campaign to save your favorite token came to life.

In 2013 the Save Your Token campaign revitalized the Monopoly brand. This two-part campaign was all about getting their fans to talk about their love for Monopoly tokens, which is the official name for the game pieces that travel around the board. Hasbro wanted to replace a token, and they wanted game players to not only vote on which token to replace, but also what new token would take its place. This was a great way to combine nostalgia for a classic game with the icons of today’s internet-driven, pop culture.

It became a cultural moment as other brands started showing their token love. Big consumer brands like Zappos and Nine West wanted the shoe token to stay. Duracell rallied for a new battery-powered robot token to be the new addition to the “Token Power Team.” And the whole cat-crazy internet wanted a new cat token to join the game. (#catsofmonopoly). This intermingling of fans and brands drove more interest and excitement for the campaign across social media channels and across the world.

It became a global conversation, not only making local and national news, but also inspiring a Saturday Night Live skit to Save the Monopoly Token. That’s when you know you’ve done something right.

The results of the campaign? Votes came in from more than 185 countries. That’s more countries than Monopoly is even sold in. This global campaign received over one billion impressions from social and traditional media and the game experienced a 30% global sales uplift in 2013, the year of the campaign. And it made Hasbro believe in the power of digital and social media.

By putting their fans first, they learned that people still love to talk about something from their childhood that united them. An 80-year-old brand exploded into a global conversation. Suddenly, they had gained and captured insight and unleashed the power of storytelling to invigorate a tired brand and drive brand loyalty.

Kathryn summarized the Hasbro big takeaways:

1. Be real with your marketing and customer interactions. Stay away from fads, trends, buzzwords and gimmicks and do what you think is right for your brand and your customers.

2. Don’t be afraid to try. You won’t regret your failure. You will regret that you didn’t try.

If you want to be able to afford Boardwalk and Park Place, tap into what your audience cares about and what they are talking about. On social, there are always people talking. How do you ignite them around a topic, a cause, a campaign that benefits you and your brand? Above all, focus on giving your customers the power to lead. They will feel proud that they wrote the beginning chapter in the story, particularly when it has a happy ending. When you do that, you can start your cat token in the next round of play and collect $200.

via What Monopoly Can Teach Marketers About Customer Loyalty and Advocacy

Here’s How To Make Sure You,
Your Business & Website Is FTC Compliant

By now it should be clear how important it is for you to be FTC compliant. But how can you do that without spending $7,500-$8,000 or more on Internet Attorneys?

Smart business owners around the world are doing it with the help of FTC Guardian.

The training is titled: 3 Tragic (Legal) Privacy Policy List Building Mistakes That Can Get You In Hot Water With The FTC Today – Resulting In Your Business Being Shut Down… And How To Solve It!

Here are some of the things you’ll discover on the training:

Real-Life Examples of People Who Didn’t Think They Were At Risk, But Who Got Nailed By The FTC, And Why It Could Happen To You, Too

Why 2014 Was a Significant Year For Online Businesses, And Why You Should Be Worried!

The 3 Enormous Powers The FTC Has That Can Change Your Life – And Your Family’s Life – Forever!

How to Avoid FTC Claims When Collecting Leads With Optin Forms

3 Privacy Policy Mistakes Every Digital Marketer Is Making, And Why You're In The FTC Crosshairs.

And Much More…

Remember: legal protection is a massively important part of your business, and it’s one you cannot afford to ignore any longer.

Go here to register for our next FREE training and make your business is FTC compliant today!