A company's website marketing will, from 1 March
2011, fall within and widen the scope of the
Advertising Standards Authority's (ASA)
regulatory remit.
Working to achieve the aim that advertising is
'legal, decent, honest and truthful' the
UK's advertising codes will now cover advertisers' own
marketing on their websites and will also extend to other content
which is not paid for and which the advertiser is able to
control.
Of particular interest is the fact that consumers and rival
business owners will be able to pursue an avenue of complaint via
the ASA against misleading advertising displayed by businesses on
their own websites. Previously this did not fall within the
ASA's remit and so presented a risk; businesses could profess
whatever they wished with little negative consequence from a false
claim. In addition marketing communications displayed on social
media sites such as Facebook and Twitter will now be regulated.
This is a significant step forward and
