Today we’re joining organisations across the world in marking ‘World Consumer Rights Day’ coordinated by Consumers International.

This year’s theme, “Building a digital world consumers can trust”, is campaigning for better online consumer rights for everybody.

Digital technology has become part of our everyday lives and has created unprecedented opportunities for us to communicate, share information and access a range of products or services.

But as our use of all things digital increases, it’s important we can trust what we’re seeing online and the sites we are visiting.

At the ASA, our aim is to make every UK ad a responsible ad and a large proportion of our work involves handling complaints about misleading advertising. 

As well as complaint handling, we take proactive steps to tackle misleading advertising so we can feel confident consumers are able to trust the ads they see and interact with - including ads online.

We’ve already worked to crackdown on copycat websites which advertise official services such as passport renewal, tax returns and European Health Insurance Cards at a cost, when Government departments provide these services at a much cheaper price or for no cost at all. We’ve also helped our sister body CAP raise awareness amongst online influencers, affiliates, bloggers and vloggers about the advertising rules so consumers know when they are being advertised to on sites such as Instagram, YouTube and Pinterest.

This year we will be turning our attention to other areas of consumer concern online, including secondary ticketing sites and subscription traps, to further help protect people from misleading advertising on the web.   

#betterdigitalworld