HealthCentral Network's GM describes how recent legislation highlights the web's evolving role in health marketing.

It is a small victory, but it speaks volumes about the future of health marketing on the web.

The win went to pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, Inc., which recently prevailed in a case in the California Court of Appeals against a class action suit for alleged false marketing claims. While the case was somewhat technical -- in essence, the court ruled that each person in a class action suit must be able to demonstrate injury -- it was hailed by some as an affirmation for First Amendment rights for marketers, and others as a blow to consumers' ability to seek redress against big pharma.

In the end, however, it mostly highlights the subtle, often tense, dance between consumers and providers in the health arena-- and the big role that the web will play in the future.

At the heart of this dance are three main pivot points: 1) the consumers' trust 2) the marketers' veracity, and 3) who referees?

On the first point: The web is riding a sea change in consumer attitudes towards media and advertising. The old model is that there are two camps: the purist, independent information sources, and the marketers who are typically characterized as trying to entice someone into doing something they don't want or shouldn't do by exaggerating or at least spinning their claims.

In the new world of modern media, all that has changed. Consumers have nearly complete control over their media experience (the web, DVRs, iTunes) and they only listen to messages they want to hear. They organize their own view of the world, based on multiple information sources, and (as scary -- or affirmative -- as it sounds) trust no one. They don't rely on a single source or pipeline, in part because the web makes it possible to quickly click from one information source to another to get corroboration and a consensus. This doesn't mean that there isn't a market for the highest quality, trusted information; quite the contrary, since it gets rarer and rarer all the time.

But it speaks to the notion that the modern consumer of information, bombarded with myriad messages every day, assembles their own truth from a wide swath of sources-- and keeps a skeptical, wary eye out. Ironically, their lack of trust in media as a whole makes them less susceptible to the messages of marketers.

As for the marketers' veracity, the central point is that the web is a very, very public place. One need only to look at the recent, recorded "I'm trying to cancel my AOL account" debacle to realize that a single disgruntled consumer can have a very big impact on a company's reputation. The web is the ultimate glass house: If you make a claim, and if it doesn't pan out, everyone will know about it in a nanosecond.

And this ultimately impacts the third pivot point, the traditional role of the "referee". In the old media world, where "trusted" media sources made a proverbial pact with the devil with marketers to put their sacred and profane messages side-by-side, courts were needed to legislate what was fair and unfair use of these limited channels of truth. In the new media world, where there are multiple information channels assembled on the fly by a network of skeptical information consumers into a world view, the idea of an independent referee seems outdated.

To be sure, there needs to be legal avenues to pursue for victims of fraud. But for most of us, the web acts as a giant, absolutely transparent jury of millions, handing down decisions swiftly and with decisiveness that should make any scurrilous marketer give pause. Ironically, the web's susceptibility to instant rumors and rants raises the bar far higher: Marketers have to be wary not just of legal issues, but of the cruel sway of public opinion, making them even more scrupulous than they need be to avoid legal action.

In the modern web world, trust comes from the experience of the community, not the courts of law. And in the end, the peoples' court may be a far more savage, formidable foe than the California Court of Appeals.

Bill Allman is general manager and chief content/creative officer, The HealthCentral Network.  Read full bio.