FTC pondering new guidelines for bloggers who review products

Every time the mail arrives at CityMama blogger Stefania Pomponi Butler's house, it's a crazy scene. Boxes and boxes of goods from corporations arrive at her door, waiting for her to review them.

"It's like Christmas every day, every week," said Pomponi Butler, who has recently reviewed a car, yogurt, laundry detergent and bento boxes. Because she doesn't have ads on her review site, she gets to keep the stuff, although the car was on loan for four days.

Scenarios like this are prompting some changes at the agency charged with keeping track of such things. Almost 30 years after the Federal Trade Commission last updated its guidelines for marketers and advertisers, the agency is looking at revising the guidelines so that bloggers and others who promote or review products follow the laws governing truth in advertising.