As I begin thinking more and more about the coming changes to the blogosphere, I begin to wonder if this is really what we need the government and Congress to be worried about in our lives.
I wrote awhile back about the CMP.LY website that allows bloggers to quickly link to an appropriate disclosure statement that describes how they may be connected or influenced to write their posts.
I begin to wonder exactly who these changes are protecting? One person commented on my cmp.ly post about he just wanted to post a link to the 1st Amendment of the United States Constitution that says I have free speech and can say whatever I want?
Don’t most people expect that there could be some strings or the potential for a person to have received something at a discount or completely for free that might impact their opinion of a product? Is it also too far-fetched of an idea to think that an individual could still provide an honest opinion of a product regardless of their connections?
Do we really need regulations and government involvement to protect us from people who are potentially no different than some individual standing on a street corner spouting whatever information they wish without retribution or regulation?