The
Advertising Standards Authority will soon
regulate social media marketing in the UK the way it regulates advertising in newspapers, on television and in other media. The goal is to protect children and consumers by putting virtually all marketing communications under ASA regulations.
In the past, if the ASA received a complaint about a Web site ad or a claim about ads in social media such as Twitter or Facebook, the watchdog group didn't feel able to take action, saying the complaints were outside its authority. From March, that won't be the case.
ASA
chairman Chris Smith says: "When this goes live next March, this will be the most comprehensive approach to the regulation of advertising in website space anywhere in the world.”
To see how
Financial Times writer Tim Bradshaw answers readers' questions about this new regulation, read today's thread of comments tagged
#FTchat on Twitter and follow him at
http://twitter.com/tim.
