A wagering site called 888 Casino has been ordered by the U.K. Advertising Standards Authority to remove an Internet ad that the agency has deemed misleading to consumers.
Claire Forbes, head of communications for the Advertising Standards Authority, said the ad in question was a banner on British Telecommunications' site. The banner showed a dialog box similar to the one a computer displays when it is downloading a file, as well as a cancel button. When users pressed the cancel button, they were taken to 888 Casino's Web site.
Internet-savvy consumers are used to banner ads, Forbes said, but when the ad didn't perform the cancel function when the button was clicked, consumers were being misled.
"It wasn't the fact that they were banner ads," she said, "but it was the fact that it popped up and it looked like it was a window that was downloading a file, and people pressed the cancel button and actually got taken to the advertiser's Web site. We felt that if you're going to press the cancel button it should make something go away because that would be what you would expect."
Forbes said she is not sure whether there was another way to escape the ad without ending up at the casino site. A consumer who filed a complaint brought the issue to the advertising agency's attention. It is not specifically against the law to do what the ads did, she said, but it is against the rules covering non-broadcasting that are decided upon by the advertising industry itself.
"This ad broke the rules; it didn't break the law, but it broke the rules the advertising industry have set themselves," she said. "That was because it was misleading, and our rules are right clear that no ad should be misleading."
The agency will not bar 888 Casino from advertising on British Web sites in the future, just from running that particular ad.