Policy paper

Online advertising - call for evidence

Updated 18 March 2020

In the light of the ongoing impact of coronavirus, we’re extending the deadline for submissions to the Call for Evidence from Monday 23 March to Monday 4 May to give stakeholders more time to adapt workloads and guarantee that we receive the best evidence.

Please do get in touch via onlineadvertising.responses@culture.gov.uk if you have any further questions.

Introduction

Online advertising is at the heart of the digital economy. As the primary source of revenue for major online platforms, it underpins the provision of key online services[footnote 1]. These services are positively transforming people’s lives. Online advertising can also help consumers to discover valuable new goods, interests and services, and is creating more accessible and low cost routes for businesses to engage with customers.

Online advertising makes an important and growing contribution to our economy, with the UK market now the third largest in the world[footnote 2]. In 2018 it accounted for over half of UK advertising spend, contributing £13.4 billion to the economy – up from £3.5 billion in 2008[footnote 3][footnote 4]. This reflects the significant shift in consumer consumption habits from traditional media, such as newspapers and TV, to online formats.

Whilst the online advertising market presents benefits, it also presents new challenges for consumers, businesses and society as a whole. It raises questions over the intensive collection, analysis and use of consumer data, as well as the appropriateness and accuracy of targeting. Limited transparency and accountability are driving concerns around the return on advertiser investment, brand safety, and wider market dynamics across the online advertising supply chain. The scale and speed of advertising has also highlighted possible challenges around content standards and harmful advertisements.

In the UK, the content and placement of online advertisements is currently regulated by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) under a self-regulatory system, with statutory backstops operating in several discrete areas. The CMA may also address misleading advertising in appropriate cases, for example where it points to systemic failures in a market[footnote 5]. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) also regulates compliance with relevant data protection legislation. In addition to these regulatory bodies, market participants and relevant trade bodies are also developing solutions that aim to solve some of the market challenges, leveraging both technical, reputational and voluntary buy-in.

Open call for evidence

In February 2019, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) announced it will consider how online advertising is regulated. Our aim is to foster fair, accountable and ethical online advertising that works for citizens, businesses and society as a whole. In particular, we want to:

  • ensure standards about the placement and content of advertising can be effectively applied and enforced online so that consumers have limited exposure to harmful or misleading advertising;

  • promote a competitive and fair online advertising market for businesses so that all businesses can compete on merit; and

  • drive transparent and ethical targeting practices for advertising online so that consumers are informed, empowered and can have trust in online advertising.

This Call for Evidence focuses on the first pillar of this work.

In relation to the second pillar, we note the market study currently being undertaken by the Competition and Markets Authority into Online Platforms and the Digital Advertising Market in the UK. This study is assessing broad potential sources of harm to consumers in connection with the market for digital advertising. In relation to the third pillar, the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation (CDEI) is conducting reviews into Online Targeting and Bias in Algorithmic Decision Making as part of their project to strengthen the governance of data-driven technology. The ICO are also carrying out a review into Adtech and Real Time Bidding as part of their aim to ensure that people have confidence in how their data is being used, even in complex online systems.

This Call for Evidence seeks to supplement the findings of these and other reviews, based on our assessment of the additional evidence required to consider our full range of objectives. We do not intend to replicate the work currently underway as part of other reviews.

Rules around advertising for specific types of content (e.g. alcohol, gambling) are out of scope of this call for evidence, as is political advertising. Work on electoral integrity and transparency is being taken forward by the Cabinet Office.

We are interested in hearing from participants engaged in all stages of the online advertising supply chain, as well as those who work in complementary or competing markets. We are interested in both short- and long-term potential solutions to these issues.

Where possible, we welcome the provision of evidence and data to support responses.

Questions

Benefits and challenges of online advertising

1. Is there any evidence that you would like to provide on the overall benefits, and/or challenges, associated with online advertising to individuals, businesses and/or society, which you believe is not being considered as part of the CMA Market Study into Online Advertising and Digital Platforms, the CDEI reviews into online targeting and bias in algorithmic decision-making, or any other recent reviews that are relevant?

The existing system of oversight and regulation

2. To what extent are consumers exposed to harm by the content and placement of online advertising?

3. How effective are the current governance and regulatory system for online advertising in the UK, including:

a. the self-regulatory system governing content and placement standards, which operates through the provision of a complaints system and technology-assisted monitoring and enforcement interventions;

b. industry-led voluntary initiatives set up to guide or regulate good practice, including, but not limited to, the Internet Advertising Bureau’s Gold Standard or Better Ad Standards; and

c. platforms’ terms of service and advertising policies.

4. How would you assess levels of compliance with the current regulatory system as you have outlined above?

5. What, if any, gaps do you consider there to be?

6. To what extent do you consider issues relating to harm to advertisers - including brand safety, ad fraud and reliable indicators of viewability - are effectively dealt with, and what further role, if any, do you consider that government could play?

7. Is there any further evidence that you would like to provide on how effective the current regulatory system is at preventing instances of the exploitation of vulnerabilities / vulnerable people, manipulation, or discrimination through the use of targeting (whether direct or indirect), which you think is not being considered by existing reviews?

8. There are some differences in the way that broadcast and non-broadcast advertising, including online advertising, is regulated. What effect do you consider any regulatory disparities have on individuals, businesses and/or society?

Further action

9. Considering the benefits and challenges you have identified above, what additional actions / measures / initiatives could be proposed that would help ensure that the online advertising sector can continue to innovate and grow?

10. What further role, if any, should government play?

How to respond

We welcome written submissions by email to onlineadvertising.responses@culture.gov.uk in a document format like PDF or Microsoft Word. If you are unable to submit via email you can post your response to Online Advertising Team, DCMS, 100 Parliament Street, Westminster, London SW1A 2BQ.

If you have any issues submitting evidence in the above formats please contact us at: onlineadvertising.responses@culture.gov.uk.

The deadline for providing evidence is midnight on Monday 23 March 2020. We will publish a summary of relevant evidence as part of a formal consultation later in 2020.

In your response, please clarify:

● if you are responding on behalf of an organisation or in a personal capacity;

● which questions you are answering. There is no need to respond to all of the questions if they are not all relevant to you;

● whether you are willing to be contacted (in which case, please provide contact details);

● whether you want your response to remain confidential for commercial or other reasons; and

● if you prefer to engage in person please specify this. We will try our best, resource-allowing, to find opportunities to do this.

Further information

Information provided in response to this call for evidence, including personal information, may be published or disclosed in accordance with the access to information regimes (these are primarily the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004).

If you want the information that you provide to be treated as confidential, please be aware that, under the FOIA, there is a statutory Code of Practice with which public authorities must comply and which deals, amongst other things, with obligations of confidence. In view of this it would be helpful if you could explain to us why you regard the information you have provided as confidential.

If we receive a request for disclosure of the information we will take full account of your explanation, but we cannot give an assurance that confidentiality can be maintained in all circumstances. An automatic confidentiality disclaimer generated by your IT system will not, of itself, be regarded as binding.

We will process your personal data in accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018.

  1. Ofcom, (2019). Ofcom Online Nation Report, 2019 [online. London: Ofcom, [Viewed 18 December 2019]. 

  2. Ofcom, (2019). Ofcom Online Nation Report, 2019 [online]. London: Ofcom, [Viewed 18 December 2019]. 

  3. Adshead, S., Forsyth G., Wood, S & Wilkinson, L., (2019). Online Advertising in the UK: A report commissioned by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport [online]. London: Plum Consulting London LLP. [Viewed 18 December 2019]. 

  4. Credos and Enders Analysis (2019). Advertising Pays 7: UK Advertising’s Digital Revolution [online]. London: The Advertising Association. [Viewed 18 December 2019]. 

  5. The CMA has taken such action in the past in relation to online hotel booking (2017-19), online dating services (2017-2018) and online gambling (2016-18)