Consultation outcome

Online Advertising Programme

From:

Department for Culture, Media and Sport

Published:

9 March 2022

Last updated:

25 July 2023

Show all updates

25 July 2023
Consultation response published
30 September 2022
Online Advertising Programme - market insights final report added.
6 June 2022
Updated impact assessment - the cost benefit analysis section of the impact assessment has been updated to correct the estimated costs. This has included adjusting the average number of pages reviewed to the median, addressing consistency issues with wage costs. This has resulted in Option 2 costs reducing from £300m to £147m and Option 3 from £673m to £452m. This has had the effect of changing the break even points. For Option 2 this has gone from 47% in scenario B, where the online safety bill is in place, to 23%, for Option 3 it has gone from 106% to 71%. The rationale and evidence of the issue have not changed.
27 May 2022
Updated consultation deadline to 8 June 2022.
17 March 2022
Added Impact assessment - Consultation on reviewing the regulatory framework for online advertising in the UK: The Online Advertising Programme with accompanying consultation questions.
9 March 2022
First published.

Read the full outcome

Government response to Online Advertising Programme consultation

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Detail of outcome

We received 115 responses to the consultation, including 12 advertisers/brands, 19 civil society organisations, 10 consumer groups, 7 platforms and 8 regulators. The government response sets out the next steps for the Online Advertising Programme, including its focus.

The Online Advertising Programme will be a targeted programme, focused on:

tackling illegal advertising
increasing protections for children and young people under 18 against adverts for products and services that are illegal to be sold to them

To do so, the government intends to:

convene a ministerially-led industry taskforce this summer, to drive forward non-legislative action addressing illegal harms and the protection of children
conduct a further consultation on the details of proposed regulation, to ensure it is coherent, logical and can be designed and implemented in partnership with industry
bring forward legislation when parliamentary time allows, to introduce a new regulatory framework for paid-for online advertising, focusing on tackling illegal advertising content and strengthening protections for children

Original consultation

Summary

The Online Advertising Programme will review the regulatory framework of paid-for online advertising

This consultation ran from
12:15am on 9 March 2022 to 11:45pm on 8 June 2022

Consultation description

The Online Advertising Programme will review the regulatory framework of paid-for online advertising to tackle the evident lack of transparency and accountability across the whole supply chain. It will consider how we can build on the existing self-regulatory framework, by strengthening the mechanisms currently in place and those being developed, to equip our regulators to meet the challenges of the online sphere, whilst maintaining this government’s pro-innovation and proportionate approach to digital regulation.

This review will work in conjunction with the measures being introduced through the forthcoming Online Safety Bill, as well as those this government is developing to address competition and data protection issues across the online landscape. Seeking to complement the online safety legislation being implemented to regulate user-generated content, the Online Advertising Programme will look specifically at paid-for online advertising to ensure holistic cover across the online content that can create harm for consumers and businesses alike.

Research Report into online advertising

Under ‘documents’ there is a research report entitled ‘Online Advertising Programme - market insights final report’. This research report was commissioned by DCMS and authored by independent digital media consultancy, Spark Ninety. The report is based on desk research and interviews with government agencies and industry stakeholders.

The research and interviews were conducted from February to April of 2022. The finalised report was provided to DCMS after the consultation closed on 8 June 2022. This report does not take consultation responses into account. The report is not indicative of the government’s position on the Online Advertising Programme or digital policy more broadly. The government will publish a response to the Online Advertising Programme public consultation in due course and will take the findings of this report into consideration, alongside consultation responses and other evidence it has received.