June 22, 2020

The ASA has launched a UK Scam Ad Alert system in partnership with the major digital advertising and social media platforms, including Facebook and Google, to help tackle bogus ads that leave consumers out of pocket. The new system will help get online paid-for scam ads taken down across multiple platforms. Working alongside the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB UK), the industry body for digital advertising, which provided its expertise and support in setting it up, the launch follows a successful three month trial during which the ASA piloted a scheme that enabled the parties to alert platforms and, where relevant, publishers to paid-for scam ads online.

The ASA explains that the Scam Ad Alert trial responded to ongoing concerns about online paid-for ads linking to fraudulent content, particularly crypto investment, such as Bitcoin, scams. Many scam ads of this type use false stories or doctored images of celebrities, and misleadingly imply those celebrities have endorsed the service.

Consumers can now report scam ads appearing in paid-for space online to the ASA who will promptly send an alert to all participating platforms with key details of the scam ad, as well as to publishers when the ad appeared on a publisher owned site. If they locate them, partners will remove the offending ad and suspend the advertiser’s account. In some instances they may also add them to blocklists, even when the ads weren’t appearing on their platform, stopping them from appearing in future.

The ASA says that while this initiative is not a cure-all, it forms part of its ongoing response to better tackling online harms and working more closely with other bodies to better protect consumers. It builds on existing measures that digital advertising and social media platforms already employ to stop many scam ads appearing in the first place. As part of the launch, and to help consumers quickly and easily draw attention to paid-for scam ads, the regulator is also launching a quick reporting form so it can act promptly with digital advertising and social media platform to get them removed. To read the ASA’s announcement in full, click here.