A decade ago, the FTC reminded search engines of their duty to label advertisements as such. Most general-purpose search engines now do so (though they’re sometimes less than forthright). But practices at specialized search engines often fall far short.
In today’s posting, Paul Kominers and I examine leading online apartment search services and evaluate the disclosures associated with their paid listings. We find paid placement and paid inclusion listings at each site, but disclosures range from limited to nonexistent. Where disclosures exist, they are largely hidden behind multiple intermediate pages, effectively invisible to most users. We propose specific ways these sites could improve their disclosures, and we flag their duties under existing law.