Source · Select Committees · Science, Innovation and Technology Committee
Recommendation 34
34
Rejected
Establish new arms-length body or extend Ofcom's powers to regulate digital advertising supply chain.
Recommendation
Tackling online harm means addressing the principles that incentivise and monetise its spread. In line with Principle 3, responsibility, the government should create a new arms-length body—not funded by industry—to regulate and scrutinise the process of digital advertising, covering the complex and opaque automated supply chain that allows for the monetisation of harmful and misleading content. Or, at the least, the government should extend Ofcom’s powers to explicitly cover this form of harm, and regulate based on the principle of preventing the spread of harmful or misleading content through any digital means, rather than limiting itself to specific technologies or sectors. (Recommendation, Paragraph 98)
Government response summary AI-generated
The government rejects the recommendation to create a new arms-length body or extend Ofcom's powers to specifically regulate the monetization of harmful and misleading content. It explains that the Online Safety Act focuses on systems and processes for illegal and child-harmful content, and extending Ofcom's remit to broader 'harmful content' would require difficult definitions and could have negative implications, instead highlighting existing industry-led schemes.
Summary of the government's response below — read the verbatim text to verify.
Government Response
Rejected
HM Government · verbatim extract
Rejected
The government acknowledges the concerns raised about the lack of transparency in the online advertising ecosystem and we continue to review the regulatory landscape in this area, including the options available to address the identified issues. The Online Advertising Taskforce, chaired by the Minister for the Creative Industries, Arts and Tourism, is also working to increase transparency and accountability, in particular as it relates to illegal advertising and increasing protections for children from adverts for products and services which are illegal to be sold to them. We are closely monitoring the implementation of the Online Safety Act to identify areas we can build on it.
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