Late last month, the FTC released a very specific guide for websites running native advertising, available here. It defines this as advertising content that "content that bears a similarity to the news, feature articles, product reviews, entertainment, and other material that surrounds it online."

As banner advertising has declined, an increasing number of sites have turned to this type of ad unit to generate revenue. The FTC guide is incredibly detailed, offering 17 different examples to make its points.

One item we found particularly noteworthy is the following:

In particular, in paragraph III near the end:

"Terms likely to be understood include "Ad," "Advertisement," "Paid Advertisement," "Sponsored Advertising Content," or some variation thereof. Advertisers should not use terms such as "Promoted" or "Promoted Stories," which in this context are at best ambiguous and potentially could mislead consumers that advertising content is endorsed by a publisher site. Furthermore, depending on the context, consumers reasonably may interpret other terms, such as "Presented by [X]," "Brought to You by [X]," "Promoted by [X]," or "Sponsored by [X]" to mean that a sponsoring advertiser funded or "underwrote" but did not create or influence the content."

Tread carefully.