Yesterday FTC has come up with a set of guidelines for online advertising aiming in particular, to address the myriad questions surrounding the use of such tools as Twitter and Facebook to promote products and disseminate messages.
The key question is , FDA going to follow it, copy it if yes to what extent. The various questions which might restrict FDA from following is
Would an advertiser be permitted to include, or embed, a hyperlink that allows a consumer to migrate from an ad to another web location that contains additional information?
Drugmakers that want to use Twitter are confined by a 140-character Tweet, but what remains unclear is whether the FDA would allow a quick click on a link that takes consumers elsewhere to read safety information.
FTC says “disclosures that are an integral part of a claim or inseparable from it should not be communicated through a hyperlink. Instead, they should be placed on the same page and immediately next to the claim, and be sufficiently prominent so that the claim and the disclosure are read at the same time… This is particularly true for cost information and certain health and safety disclosures”
