FTC Updates Search Engine Companies on Distinguishing Ads from Search Results

摘要

On June 24, 2013, the staff of the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC's) Bureau of Consumer Protection sent a letter to search engine companies, updating its 2002 guidance on avoiding consumer deception, a violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act, by taking better steps to distinguish paid search results and other advertisements from natural search results. The FTC noted that features used by search engines to help consumers differentiate advertising from natural search results have become less noticeable to consumers. Indeed, a recent survey indicated that nearly half of searchers could not distinguish "top ads" (advertisements located directly above natural search results) because the background shading used to distinguish the ads was white.