As we reported last week, since March 1st the Advertising Standards Authority has broadened it’s reach, and is now monitoring online advertising in the UK as well as its traditional sphere of print, television and radio. While we certainly don’t envy their new task, it’s absolutely a good thing that some kind of regulatory body is wading into the traditionally murky world of online advertising. So what could this mean for freelancers, contractors and small businesses who conduct a good deal of their business online, and rely on SEO or paid-for advertising to bring in the leads?
Well, firstly, it’s time to drop any and all claims that you can’t back up. Calling yourself the UK’s Number 1 Taxidermist is all well and good, but can you prove it? If not, one of your competitors will likely take issue. Likewise, if a competitor is making a claim you feel is fraudulent, you can now shop them to the ASA.
The ASA’s new powers even extend to business Twitter and Facebook accounts – on the basis that those outlets are likely to be used for marketing, even though it’s not advertising in the traditional sense.
If you are employing, shall we say, “aggressive” SEO strategies, you might also be in trouble. If you cast your eye over the CAP Code, specifically clause 3.43 -
“Marketing communications must not take unfair advantage of the reputation of a competitor’s trade mark, trade name or other distinguishing mark or of the designation of origin of a competing product.”
In theory, this should put a stop the the practise (in the UK at least) of companies including the names of their competitors in their website content, in order to appear in search results intended to find other companies. This has generally been recognised as a dirty tactic for a while (so-called “Black Hat SEO”, or “Grey Hat”, depending on what kind of wizard you speak to), but it would now seem such practises will run afoul of the ASA.
Mentioning no names, we have been made aware of a number of companies employing such tactics, in one case by means of a blog post casually mentioning a competitor, which is then replicated across their entire site, artificially generating hundreds of mentions and boosting their Google rankings significantly. Quite apart from risking a serious kick in the rankings from Google, these sites could now be subject to the ASA’s name and shame policy.
One area that isn’t quite so clear cut is AdWords ads. By attaching an advert to a specific search term – which could very well be a competitor’s trademark – could the advertiser, or even Google (who runs the adverts), be infringing the CAP code? For example, a quick Google search for Freelance Advisor reveals advertising against our good name by a certain Contractor Mortgages company (link goes to one of their competitors to keep the world in balance) - if we were feeling particularly litigious, could we get that pulled down?
Somebody needs to lawyer up and file some test cases!
Photo by Aliks Jendlent – CC
