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According to new guidelines from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), bloggers who fail to disclose that they have received freebies when they write about a product can now be fined up to $11,000 per post. The new FTC Guide Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising argues that any post of a blogger who receives "cash or in-kind payment to review a product" should be considered an endorsement. Because these posts are now officially considered endorsements, bloggers who receive freebies must now disclose this fact on their site.

At a recent Social Media Club event in Richmond, Virginia, we caught up with local NBC television reporter Rachel DePompa and local political and news blogger John Sarvay.

The pair had just wrapped up a panel discussion on social media and the news. Although each provides coverage of overlapping spaces, they both had unique insights on gathering and reporting the news, as well as using social media to reach the public.

Ada Lovelace, a 19th century British writer who is considered the world's first computer programmer, will be honored by bloggers all over the world tomorrow. In the spirit of providing young women with role models, more than 1500 bloggers participating in the first annual Ada Lovelace Day have pledged to write about a woman or women they admire working in technology on March 24th. You can read about Lovelace on Wikipedia.

Omid Reza Misayafi, one of a number of Iranian bloggers arrested for "insulting" the government and religious authorities in that country, is dead. Misayafi's death was reported on Global Voices Online via an Iranian human rights site in Farsi and we learned of it from The Committee to Protect Bloggers.

No cause of death is yet known, but the Committee says torture of bloggers is common in Iran and they are usually placed in close proximity to the most dangerous criminals in any facility. Misayafi was sentenced in December to 30 months in prison "for insulting Islamic Republic Leaders." The man said he was a cultural blogger, not a political one, and only wrote a few satirical articles that got him into trouble.

One would think that few ads could be less controversial than ads for painkillers, but over the weekend, McNeil Consumer Healthcare, the maker of Motrin, found itself in the middle of a major controversy on Twitter, FriendFeed, and other social networks. Motrin's latest ad discusses the advantages of using the painkiller for mothers who 'wear' their babies close to their body with a sling or other baby carriers and who might suffer from back pain because of it. A lot of mothers (and fathers) were clearly not amused by these ads and Motrin has now decided to remove them and has issued an apology.