Google's Checkbook Funds UK Ad Regulator

In today's Guardian out of the UK, I found the interesting news that Larry and Sergey's Black Box, Inc. (aka Google) has cut a funding deal with the Advertising Standards Authority, a regulator previously supported by a 0.1% statutory levy on UK ad budgets. The ASA looks at search as well as display and seems to respond to complaints numbering in the hundreds.

It is thought that Google has only committed initially for two years and also that it has refused the role of collecting the levy across the industry, making this task a lot more difficult.

This aside, the industry is hailing the deal as a landmark for extending advertising self-regulation.

"This stands to be an incredibly important development in effective self regulation by the advertising industry," said Winston Fletcher, chairman of the Advertising Standards Board of Finance, which funds the ASA through the levy mechanism. "It promises to strengthen significantly the reach and work of the ASA, which will be good for our industry and vital for consumers. The active role that Google has played has been essential."

Matt Brittin, Google's UK managing director, added: "If people have a complaint about a claim made on a website it's important that it is properly investigated. We support the ASA's aims of providing consumer protection and are happy to help get this up and running for the benefit of UK consumers and businesses."

According to the ASA's annual report for 2008, complaints about online ads grew by 24.6% year-on-year to 3,571 – 65% of which fell outside the regulator's current jurisdiction.