The Wall Street Journal and native advertising

“Are you kidding me? (I repeated the search, so consider this a rhetorical question.)

 “The Deloitte content shows up fourth in the search results and oh by the way, a second piece of Deloitte content ‘earns’ the sixth slot.

“The Journal’s search engine doesn’t appear to distinguish between sponsored content and journalism, raking through a database that blends the two. There is no way in a million years the typical reader is going to figure out that the moniker under the search result in micro type ‘Deloitte Risk & Compliance’ means it’s paid. This line further blurs given the Deloitte result is surrounded by results of of legit journalism that look exactly the same. Once readers click, the psychology is not to be on the lookout for disclaimers.

“The Federal Trade Commission held a workshop on native advertising earlier in the month prompting Mary Engle, the FTC’s associate director of the advertising practices division, to admit, ‘This has raised more questions than it answered.’

“Ms. Engle, you might want to add this question to your list.”

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