Came across this rumor at SER last week, and then it was brought up again today at SEL. It comes from very crediable source (Barry Schwartz).

This will be very interesting to see how it plays out. Barry suggests that Florida’s Attorney General is pressuring google into making this new ad requirement. Dont get me wrong, it makes perfect sense - a user searches for “Free Ringtone” gets a bunch of ads / landing pages that try everything they can to get the customer to sign up without thinking they will pay for anything (i know, some are more shady than others and some even disclose the pricing info on the landing page).

But this got me thinking, what’s next? While ringtones have the attention of plenty of law makers - what about other items that are (mostly) advertised as “free”. Will those ads / industries also soon be required to “disclose pricing” in the ad???

so who can be next? maybe ads under “free porn”, “free credit report”or “free games”…..

While google has yet to confirm this, it does seem like it is happening. just do a search for: free ringtones and you will see many of the ads already disclosing the price.

Will post an update once this is confirmed by google.