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Breach doesn't believe in accepting free meals, but many bloggers have no qualms about it. The code of ethics from the Association of Food Journalists, an organization for professionals, prohibits reviewers from taking freebies. But bloggers have no such restrictions.

There's a difference, though, between being rationally aware of price, and being personally sensitive to a good gouging.

This article focuses on negative web reviews, but a powerful incentive for positive reviews by "mainstream" critics is that your words are more likely to be quoted if you're helping sell the product. For instance, a movie critic knows that he's more likely to be quoted in nationwide ads if he waxes hyperbolic about a film with comments like "Quite possibly the most beautiful movie ever made" or "The feel-good film of the season." Such quotes are used in ads, and the more the reviewer is quoted, the more powerful the reviewer becomes.

business from that than LTHers brought to Katy's, say.

I think "Time Out Chicago" and "strip mall in Westmont" are almost mutually exclusive in terms of audience, but in any case, I don't think they wrote about it until the thread had been going quite a while, with many many different folks trying Katy's and reporting back here.

TOC, Steve Dolinski, Monica Eng, Mike Sula, the pillars of Chicago's ethnic dining press, have writeups in windows of deserving but empty storefronts all over town.

most of what Katy's makes is very easy to appreciate for most diners.

How often in those ads is the reviewer named? It seems like an awful lot of them just say "New York Times" or whatever.

[UPDATE 4: In an October 8, 2009 interview with Fast Company, Cleland has backpedaled somewhat, claiming that the $11,000 fine is not true and indicating that the FTC will be "focusing on the advertisers." The problem is that page 61 of the proposed guidelines clearly states, "Endorsers also may be liable for statements made in the course of their endorsements." And endorsers, as we have established in this interview, include bloggers. However, Cleland is right to point out that the guidelines do not point to a specific liability figure and that it would take a blogger openly defying a Cease & Desist Order to enact penalties. The Associated Press was the first to report the $11,000 fine per violation. Did somebody at the AP misreport the penalty information? Or was it misinterpreted?

Some investigation into FTC precedents would suggest that the AP reported these concerns correctly. Here are some precedents for the up to $11,000 fine per violation: non-compliance of wedding gown label disclosure, non-compliance of contact lens sellers, and an update to the federal register. On Monday, the FTC precedents establish heavy penalties for non-compliance, the the guidelines themselves specify penalties as endorsers, and Cleland insists that bloggers who review products are "endorsers." On Wednesday, Cleland now claims that bloggers won't be hit by penalties. The FTC needs to be extremely specific about this on paper, if it expects to allay these concerns. (Thanks to Sarah Weinman for reporting assistance on this update.)]

I think it's fine that bloggers are going to be legally required to disclose that they were paid or given freebies for endorsements or good reviews. But I think that celebrities should also be held to the same standard. Commercials featuring celebrities endorsing cars or whatever should be compelled to disclose what they were given/paid in exchange for the endorsement. During the commercial.

Why should little ol' bloggers be held to a higher standard than big-budget commercials and celebrity spokespeople?