The UK is introducing new regulation on Internet Advertising that will be managed through the ASA Advertising Standards Authority. Like those introduced in the USA by the FTC and other governing boards the new rules are expected to hit many businesses, non-profits and even political influenced speech pretty hard.
What is interesting about the loss of what many in the US would consider First Amendment rights the rulings are being placed on the back of child protection.
Now most people are in favor of rules that would eliminate spam to some extent and others would go as far to say businesses need to be held accountable for all advertising whether paid or not the ASA is looking also at links within search engines and on social networks like Facebook and Twitter.
The new rulings will have effect on which ads people are allowed to see… for instance they say
“New stricter rules provide further protections for children, for example a new scheduling restriction will prevent ads for age-restricted computer and console games from appearing around programmes made for, or likely to appeal particularly to them.”
And they also go on to say…
“While a new section on environmental claims will provide greater clarity for the public on what ‘green’ terms are likely to be acceptable.”
It seems more then overboard to not promote products to minors that they would enjoy. It is up to the parent to tell the child to either save their allowance if they get one or maybe buy them a book..
But how do environmentalists play into this protection scheme? Why do they need protection from anyone?
Maybe the animals they hope to save or trees do but … it is very far reaching to get to the level where one group is protected over another.
After all we just found out that the 100 Billion dollars the Obama administration promised to Europe for green projects was based on faulty science.
The rules in the US are not as harsh as the ones in the UK but that is because US law makers are going through another round of introducing regulations.
It seems that as long as people are in power that want to remove our freedom of speech along with other rights we have.. they will come back over and over again in the dead of night and push through things that steal our rights…
http://asa.org.uk/
