The chief U.S. consumer protection agency has adopted a new set of rules that will require bloggers, celebrities and others to disclose their commercial relationships with advertisers who have paid them to endorse products or services.

Under the new guidelines, the Federal Trade Commission is zeroing in on endorsements and testimonials, seeking to arm consumers with the knowledge that the shills they encounter on TV and the Internet may not be honest brokers.

In practice, the new rules will mean that bloggers will have to disclose their relationships with advertisers. So a mommy blogger writing a review of a household cleaning product that had been provided to her by the company would have to mention that "material relationship" in her post. Similarly, in the tech sector, the widespread practice of manufacturers providing bloggers with free products for review would likely also lead to a new wave of disclosures.

"The revised guides specify that while decisions will be reached on a case-by-case basis, the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement," the agency said in a statement explaining its rules. "Thus, bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service."

The new rules are the first update to the FTC's guidelines on endorsements and testimonials since 1980.

In a broad sense, the new rules are intended to bring the agency's enforcement policy in line with the ways advertisers are using new forms of media to promote their products and services. Celebrities, for instance, will be required to "disclose their relationships with advertisers when making endorsements outside the context of traditional ads, such as on talk shows or in social media."

The agency also removed the long-standing safe harbor provision governing how advertisers must disclose atypical results in testimonials. Under the 1980 version of the guidelines, advertisers could simply include the disclosure "results not typical" when running an ad that spotlighted, say, a beaming middle-age woman explaining how she lost 160 pounds in six months thanks to a miraculous diet regimen.

No longer. Going forward, advertisers will have to make more meaningful disclosures that the testimonial they are sharing is an aberration.

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Advertisers, bloggers and other endorsers who fail to make the appropriate disclosures would run afoul of the FTC's rules governing deceptive ads, and would be subject to fines.

The FTC said it will review relationships between advertisers and endorsers on a case-by-case basis.

The rules take effect Dec. 1.