Disclaimers should be clear and concrete, and they should be presented in easy terms. (image: Korea Bizwire)
SEOUL, Feb. 1 (Korea Bizwire) — The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) announced on Thursday that it had prepared guidelines for the effective delivery of disclaimers included in advertisements to prevent consumer misunderstanding.
From now on, there will be fewer advertisements that mislead consumers by embedding important information in fine print.
For example, when advertising an air conditioner by claiming that it can ‘eliminate 99% of hazardous substances in the air’, the company should also include disclaimers such as ‘depending on actual conditions of use’.
The FTC plans to define the requirement of these conditions as guidelines to prevent damages in advance.
First of all, it has been decided that the color of the text of any disclaimer should be clearly differentiated from the background color, and the text should be of sufficient size so that consumers can easily recognize it.
The guidelines also stipulate that fine print should be close to the core part of the advertisement and should be easy for consumers to notice.
Furthermore, disclaimers should be clear and concrete, and they should be presented in easy terms.
While it was more common to see these guidelines not being followed in advertisements, some were obviously false advertisements.
In fact, last year, some companies were fined for using very ambiguous language and confusing consumers with false advertisements.
However, because it is difficult to prevent and reverse the damage once a false advertisement has been released, the guidelines aim to encourage advertisers to abide by the law themselves.
The FTC will continue to strictly deal with advertisements that do not follow the guidelines.
Ashley Song (ashley@koreabizwire.com)
