The enterprising bloggers over at Racked, still smarting over the Federal Trade Commission’s 2009 regulation that bloggers must tell readers when they get free stuff or trips from companies trying to butter them up for publicity, disclosed that they accepted one such free trip to a conference in Yonkers so they could ask the FTC, face-to-face, WTF? Editor Danica Lo points out that free blogger gifts (some of ours have included dog biscuits, T-shirts, scarves, more T-shirts, more scarves, and gold metal fingers) are often garbage compared to the loot print editors get. “You’d never guess how many print editors get sent multiple iPad “look books” each year, free Chanel handbags every holiday season, or are routinely handed $1,000 gift certificates to stores such as Barneys or Jimmy Choo,” she blogs.
