New Laws for Writing Reviews

I heard on the radio on my way home from work the other night that new laws were going into effect concerning reviews written by bloggers and others on the Internet. These rules will hold the writer or blogger up to the same standards as commercial advertisers.

The reviewer must have used the product or service he/she is reviewing. The writer cannot write that a product or service is good or bad because he/she was told so. The writer must experience it for him/herself. Just because the writer's best friend had bad service at a restaurant, the writer cannot write a bad review unless he/she had the same experience.

The writer cannot say something is bad when it is good or the other way around. If the writer has a problem with a company and writes a bad review about a product or service the company offers just because he/she is mad at the company and the product or service is really good, then the company can sue the writer.

What this means is the writer must be honest in his/her review. If the writer doesn't like a product, he/she should state why. An example would be if the writer reviews a bean soup and doesn't like the soup because there aren't enough beans to satisfy the writer, then that is what should be said, not that the soup tasted horrible. If the writer liked the taste of the soup, then he/she should say so even if there wasn't enough beans. The fact the soup is skimpy on the beans may not bother other people and some people may not want more beans in their soup.

I wrote a review about a chicken chili. One of the comments I got from a reader was the chili wasn't thick enough. The lack of the thickness of the chili did not bother me nor had I even noticed. I was honest by not mentioning the chili wasn't thick because of this. On the other hand, had I noticed the chili wasn't thick and said I didn't like the product then I would have to explain that I didn't like thin chili. I could not say it taste horrible if I didn't like less than thick chili. It would have had to taste terrible for me to say so.

The truth of the matter is a writer has to be very careful about reviews. I keep Oprah in mind. She ended up in court in Texas because she had somebody on her show who talked about mad cow disease and Oprah said she wouldn't eat beef. The beef industry claimed that hurt the sales of beef. I believe malice on Oprah's part had to be proved and it wasn't.

Overall, I believe the best thing to do is be honest. State why you like or dislike a product or service. Do not make up things to make the product or service sound better or worse than it really is.

So next time you sit down to write a review, keep this article in mind. I know none of us want to get sued.