ftc

Warner Bros. recently settled the charges filed by FTC for allegedly deceiving the customers during a marketing campaign for Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor, by not disclosing the fact that they paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to famous YouTubers, including PewDiePie to post positive gameplay footage of the game on YouTube and other social media. Even though the videos were sponsored, Warner Bros. didn’t ask the influencers in question to disclose that information clearly, as required by the FTC’s endorsement guidelines. In fact, they told them to put disclosures in the video description box, which meant that most of them wouldn’t be seen at all without clicking the “show more” button. The result, according to the complaint, is that “Warner Bros., through its marketi...