The guys over at the FTC headquarters have created a set of rules for celebrity and high profile Twitter users. These rules were released yesterday by Federal Trade Commission agents to help celebrities protect their privacy.

In addition to the usual privacy tantrum, the main reason for creating those rules was to outline a roadmap for celebrities who are into selling or endorsing products/ services. Starting with ‘Juli Starz’; a fictional celebrity that “others” are supposed to learn from, was created by FTC reps.

I have pasted the celebrity tweeting guide link below. Though there are rare chances of an actual celebrity reading this brand new/ hardly one year old blog, but you never know. In the original tweet, Juli Starz is tweeting about a product that helped her lose 30 pounds in six weeks.

Click Here for  FTC Celebrity Tweeting Guide for High Profile Users | The National

I don’t know the level of health standards Juli has, but anyhow, she seems to be endorsing the “Fat Away” pill the wrong way. This tweet was accompanied by the URL of the website where “Fat Away” is available. In other words, this was the old method of celebrity endorsement which the FTC has changed once and for all.

As a matter of fact, the old twitter tweeter method is now considered illegal. Now the FTC wants specifics from celebrities who want to endorse either a product or a service. For instance, Juli Starz is now expected to mention:

• The endorsed product is an ad.
• It should also mention how likely the said product is supposed to help others get the same results.

FTC goes on to explain the new tweeting pattern by displaying a tweet where Juli is using the “#Spon” hashtag. “#Spon” stands for sponsor and it is currently too obscure for many potential clients. The better and possibly the legal way of celebrity tweeting is to mention the “#Ad” hashtag.

It would be interesting to see how many celebrities would actually pay attention to the latest FTC guidelines. What if the celebrities don’t give a fuck to anything that FTC says? In that case, there is definitely going to be a headline worthy material in near future. FTC says that a lawsuit is imminent during events where celebrity tweets are violating the guidelines.