Gagging Bloggers?

The Federal Trade Commission, which set the blogging world aflame two weeks ago with new guidelines governing truth-in-cyberspace-advertising, “never intended to patrol the blogosphere,” FTC lawyer Mary Engle said at a bloggers’ conference last weekend. According to Publishers Weekly Engle, the FTC’s associate director for advertising practices, said: “We couldn’t do it if we wanted to and we don’t want to.” The gathering of 70 bloggers, who were invited by conference organizer Pam Coughlan, otherwise known as blogger Mother Reader, was organized to help them understand the implications of the new guidelines. “Everybody who talked to me after [Mary Engle] spoke said they felt so much better and that they understood the issues much better,” Coughlan said.