Asa.org.uk Reviews
1 Review for Asa.org.uk
All Reviews
Advertising Standards Authority UK
The ASA (http://www.asa.org.uk/ ) is the UK's independent regulator of advertising across all media, including, from 1 March 2011, marketing on websites. They work to ensure ads are legal, decent, honest and truthful by applying the Advertising Codes.
Up till now the ASA could shut down any advertising that broke the code in print, or on TV and radio. The internet was immune form them.
The great news for consumers is that from the 1st March, the ASA can prosecute and close down any false online advertising accessed from the UK.
Not sure exactly how they can enforce their rules against foreign based websites, but we shall see. They should be effective against any UK based scammers, provided they have details of the offenders sent in by the victims.
So don't just moan about being ripped off – chase the scammers down!
To log a complaint go to:
http://www.asa.org.uk/Complaints/How-to-complain.aspx
Good luck!
Q&A for Asa.org.uk
Link to Asa.org.uk Reviews:
Or share via social media
David H. Cool. Wish they had it is the US. With an Internet TSAR, you think we would.
Chris O. It's good for the UK for sure. As to international sites, I can't see there can be jurisdiction. Just because something is visible from the UK if you look in the right place, won't make it subject to UK regulations, I'm certain.
From what I can recall of being in the UK, the ASA has the power to request an ad be removed, but nothing more than that. It's doesn't have the power to close down the venue. But I'll stand corrected, as it's been a while. If the ASA now has the power to act beyond removing the offending ad itself, that's new.
K D. Chris is right – main power of the ASA is to take down the ad – it used to be a very slow process, but is now much faster. However, where the only thing that a scam company has is a domain / web page full of lies, the ASA should be able to close that off – definitely in the UK, but they might also have a lot more power than one pissed off individual when requesting a big company providing and hosting domains (e.g. such as GoDaddy.com) to shut down a pirate domain. Of course, if they can’t actually be prosecuted in the UK, the likelihood is they’ll pop up again under a new disguise, but it all helps a little…
Chris O. David is right, too. It should be here in the US. But ad law is more relaxed here anyway and would have to be tightened up a lot before anything like this could work.
We could start by banning ads from lawyers and drug companies, as in Europe, but it won't happen because about half the ads on TV are for lawyers and drug companies and that represents a huge amount of revenue for the TV companies. And the US should follow the UK example and permit only balanced and limited advertising by political parties, at appropriate times, and nothing from individual candidates at all. That would be against American ideas of free speech, but it sure would be welcome. If you haven't been exposed to American ad campaigns, you really can't imagine how vicious they are, how long they drag on, and, how shall I put this ... how inaccurate many of the politicians' statements are subsequently shown to be.
The good news about the ASA is as Keyth says, they can now order the removal of what used to be called 'editorial content' but which was merely site owners advertising their own products. The body of a web page is now fair game, and wasn't, before.
Does anyone else see the difficulties in making this work, though? For example, take a counterfeiter of my favorite product, Ugg boots. Most if not all of them use genuine Ugg advertising, stolen from elsewhere, whilst actually selling fakes. But the advertising itself is genuine and honest, it's only the products that are fake. Our counterfeiter, and let's imagine he is within ASA jurisdiction, is safe as far as I can see, since he is advertising the genuine products and not the cheap junk he actually delivers. If challenged, he would argue that all his ads are true and honest; if he chooses to promote someone else's products, that's not covered by the ASA rules.
What I'd like to see, is the extended rules extended again, to cover counterfeiters situated in the UK or operating through UK-registered domains. It might not make much or any difference, but it would be another legal problem for them to negotiate and it would draw public attention to the use of genuine texts and images to promote fake goods. How about it, ASA?