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Complaints about online ads increase

Online marketers need to make sure their adverts are of their highest standards after new figures showed consumers are increasingly prepared to complain about their content.

Official figures released by the UK's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) showed that internet advertising was the most complained about non-broadcast medium and the second most controversial medium overall.

It said that it received a total of 2,980 complaints about internet ads in 2007 and that the most common complaints were about pricing, availability of goods and charges displayed on internet ads.

ASA Chairman, Lord Chris Smith said that the quality of internet advertising needed to be carefully monitored.

"These complaints are almost entirely about truth, accuracy, misleadingness and availability - the 'meat and drink' of the ASA's daily work," he explained.

"We hope for an early outcome to the detailed discussions under way within the industry on the development of ways to ensure continued responsibility in advertising in new media settings." ADNFCR-1536-ID-18573847-ADNFCR