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FTC TO CELEBRITIES: LABEL SPONSORED INSTAGRAM POSTS

Celebrities who push products on Instagram without disclosing that they got paid to do so got a friendly letter from the FTC this week.

The Federal Trade Commission asked the “influencers” to more clearly and conspicuously label their posts as paid placements, saying that using hashtags isn’t enough because “readers may just skip over them.”

The FTC would not name names “at this time,” but said it sent the letters because of complaints from consumer advocacy group Public Citizen. In September and November, Public Citizen sent complaints to the FTC about undisclosed paid product endorsements by Warriors stars Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant, pop star Rihanna, some Kardashians — they’re everywhere — and more.

On Wednesday, the FTC said it sent more than 90 letters to influencers, urging them to check themselves — and the agency’s endorsement guides.

The agency said it was the first time “that FTC staff has reached out directly to educate social media influencers themselves.”

In its communications with the FTC, Public Citizen also charged that “companies are preying off of the trust and relatability of smaller-level influencers” who often get free products from companies and don’t disclose that they are paid endorsements.

Other celebrities mentioned

in Public Citizen’s complaints include Serena Williams, LeBron James, Jennifer Lopez, Anne Hathaway and Ryan Reynolds.

What are the consequences if the influencers don’t shape up?

According to the FTC’s endorsement guides: “Although there are no fines for violations of the FTC Act, law enforcement actions can result in orders requiring the defendants in the case to give up money they received from their violations.”

Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, said in a statement Wednesday that the FTC’s letters validate the group’s concerns, but that they’re just a first step.

“Instagram has become a Wild West of disguised advertising, targeting young people and especially young women,” Weissman said. “That’s not going to change unless the FTC makes clear that it aims to enforce the core principles of fair advertising law.” — Levi Sumagaysay

REPORT: S.F. STARTUP JUICERO’S $400 JUICE-MAKER IS TOTALLY UNNECESSARY

Technology is supposed to make our lives easier. And you can look no further than the navigation app in your smartphone to see that this can indeed be so.

And here’s another truth: lots of people like to drink freshly squeezed juice, and in Silicon Valley, folks are partial to boutique “cold-pressed” squeezings that cost 10 times the average daily wage in much of the developing world.

Add this: there’s an on-demand element here, and we know how much American urbanites love that.

Put those realities together and you have Juicero, a San Francisco startup that raked in $120 million in funding.

That may seem like an awful lot of money for a company making a juicer, even a smart one that connects to the internet.

But there’s more to it: not only would customers have the privilege of owning the prestigious $399 juice-maker, they would be able to get the individual juice packs it requires delivered weekly, “chilled at a perfect 41 degrees,” according to the company.

And with the accompanying mobile app, Juicero users can read about the farms that produced the fruits and veggies in the juice packs, and about the nutritional content, along with monitoring personal use of the connected juicemaking device.

The juice packs are full of chopped fruit and vegetables, and it takes the $399 Juicero device — which exerts a force sufficient to lift up two Teslas, according to founder Doug Evans — to squeeze the juice out of them and into a container on its way to your gullet. Actually, that last bit’s not true, apparently. “After the product hit the market, some investors were surprised to discover a much cheaper alternative: You can squeeze the Juicero bags with your bare hands,” Bloomberg reported April 19.

“Two backers said the final device was bulkier than what was originally pitched and that they were puzzled to find that customers could achieve similar results without it.”

A Bloomberg reporter conducted a test, and found that “squeezing the bag yields nearly the same amount of juice just as quickly—and in some cases, faster—than using the device,” according to the news outlet. — Ethan Baron

GOOGLE TO PAY $22.5 MILLION IN ADWORDS SETTLEMENT

Google has struck a deal to settle a class-action lawsuit for $22.5 million in a dispute that arose from disappointments regarding the placement of advertisements.

The deal sets up a fund from which members of the class in the litigation would be able to receive cash payments as compensation.

“If you had a Google AdWords account and were charged for ad clicks, you may be entitled to money,” reads an introduction to the website that’s been set up regarding the settlement.

A website provides information about the settlement and enables people to make arrangements to receive cash from the settlement.

“This case alleges that Google failed to disclose to its AdWords customers that it placed ads on websites known as parked domains and error pages,” according to the website. “The lawsuit alleges that this conduct violated California laws against unfair competition and false advertising.” Parked domains are websites that aren’t fully developed or are completely undeveloped and have little or no content.

Mountain View-based Google denies the claims lodged against it.

The deal applies to U.S. residents with an AdWords account from July 11, 2004 through March 31, 2008. It also applies to people who were charged for clicks on advertisements that appeared on parked web domains or error pages.

The plaintiffs claimed the tech titan failed to provide its advertising customers with the value that they had paid for. The plaintiffs charged in their lawsuit that they bought advertising services and were led to believe Google would place their ads on internet sites that were high quality. — George Avalos

LITTLE GREEN MEN? OR SOMETHING ELSE? HERE’S HOW TO SPOT ALIEN LIFE-FORMS

The thought of extraterrestrial life — usually imagined as some form of green Martians — has captured our imaginations for years.

And as we discover more about the universe around us, the possibility of finding those other life-forms seems closer than ever before.

A few likely contenders: NASA has found evidence of ice on Mars, which could be promising. Earlier this month scientists studying Saturn’s moon Enceladus reported a chemical reaction under ice on the moon’s surface that could provide the ingredients for life. And on Thursday scientists found another possible site: a “rocky super-Earth” orbiting a nearby star.

But how do we find our fellow beings? Axios has helpfully prepared a guide.

Digging through the data: It’s a numbers game, says astrophysicist Paul Sutter, which means finding out how many planets are out there, and how many have water and other good conditions for life.

“It’s only by obsessive, detailed observations will we crack it,” he wrote.

Spot the first signs: We’re looking for gases like carbon dioxide and methane in a planet’s atmosphere, says planetary geologist Ellen Stofan.

A big telescope: “To confirm life, we need to build large enough space-based telescopes to image extrasolar planets, hopefully only a few decades from now,” Stofan wrote.

And big antennas: We generally use large antennas to hunt for “faint, deliberately produced radio signals from other worlds,” wrote astronomer Seth Shostak.

Be open-minded: Real aliens probably will bear no resemblance to the Martians of sci-fi movies. We are hard at work on artificial intelligence here on Earth, so wouldn’t advanced aliens have done this long ago? Maybe we should be looking for thinking machines, not biological beings, Shostak says.

“The most impressive intellects of the universe won’t need the life-friendly environments of planets, and could be spread throughout space,” he wrote. — Marisa Kendall