New proposal to regulate online advertising
Posted by Carl Barnett on 23 Mar 2010 at 15:03
New laws could come into effect soon in the UK that would regulate the amount and nature of advertising that is present on social networking sites.
Online gambling advertisers would be affected by the proposed new regulations, which would closely monitor the frequency and nature of advertising on sites like Facebook.
If a proposed amendment to the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) Code is made law, The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) will gain control of the advertising that appears on social sites.
This will effectively permit the ASA to monitor and regulate the activities of marketers who use social networking sites to promote the businesses that they run.
The proposed move is aimed at ridding such sites of inappropriate advertisements by alcohol and health products, but also some online gambling sites that do not follow fair practice.
The stated aim of the proposed amendment is to ensure fairness in advertising online.
The ASA have already said the ‘two thirds’ of the complaints that they receive from the public about advertisements are out of their control due to the marketing activity taking place online.
Search engine giant Google have agreed to donate money to get the initiative up and running.
