Ad watchdog to monitor web words

28 February 2011 Last updated at 19:01 ET

How companies talk about themselves on Twitter feeds or Facebook profiles is to be policed like adverts.

From 1 March, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) gets powers to police the claims companies make on websites and social networks.

The rules cover statements on sites that can be interpreted as marketing, even if they are not in an advert.

Until now, the ASA has only been able to oversee paid-for ads online.

Since 2008, the watchdog has received more than 4,500 complaints concerning text on websites that it could do nothing about.

"These are claims that are very similar to the claims that [the public] are used to seeing in adverts that appear in media like TV, radio, posters and print," ASA chief executive Guy Parker told the BBC.

The ASA said that the new powers would help it tackle a growing number of complaints about the way companies sell themselves on the web.

Misleading words

Extending the UK advertising code to non paid-for statements means that these, like paid-for adverts, must not harm, mislead or offend.

While aimed primarily at sites using the .co.uk domain suffix, the ASA said its powers could also cover .com sites, such as Facebook, if the online space being used was under the control of a UK firm.

However, the transient nature of online content may make the rules difficult to police, according to Vincent-Wayne Mitchell, professor of consumer marketing at London's Cass Business School.

"I could have an advert up on the internet for a week or for an hour, cause widespread confusion, get sales from that, and then withdraw it," he said.

"The only punishment that the ASA has is withdrawal, but I can have that as part of my own marketing strategy," said Professor Mitchell.

Name and shame

User-generated content, such as comments left by customers on a website, will not be covered by the extended powers.

But the ASA said that such content could be examined if a company adopted it and used positive endorsements to advertise.

To encourage firms to comply, the ASA said it would extend a name-and-shame policy which will expose firms that make unsupportable claims.

Further sanctions for offenders could see non-compliant material removed from search engines. The ASA said it might also take out adverts to warn people about companies that do not comply with the code.

In anticipation of the extra work it will have to do, the ASA has expanded the number of staff in its complaints and investigations unit by 10%.

Powered By WizardRSS - Full Text RSS Feeds

Gmail users find accounts wiped

28 February 2011 Last updated at 11:21 ET

Thousands of Gmail users have been left with empty inboxes after their accounts were accidentally wiped clean.

As well as missing e-mails, many reported that their contacts had also disappeared.

Google, which operates Gmail, said that a small percentage of its users had been affected.

Some accounts have already been restored, suggesting the data was not permanently deleted.

In a statement, Google said: "This is affecting less than .08% of our Gmail user base, and we've already fixed the problem for some individuals."

The company said that engineers were working to restore service.

Google does not release official figures for the number of Gmail accounts, however it is believed to be between 150 million and 200 million.

That would mean that around 150,000 users were affected by the problem.

Gmail outages on this scale are rare, according to Alex Chitu, whose blog Google Operating System, charts the company's cloud computing initiatives.

He told BBC News that although service was being restored, many users were angry about the way the outage had been handled.

"Today's issue shows that Gmail is far from perfect and Google should do a better job at communicating with users.

"When you can't access your message and your Google account is disabled, it's nice to know why," he said.

Powered By WizardRSS - Full Text RSS Feeds

Exchange serves up malicious ads

28 February 2011 Last updated at 07:55 ET

Booby-trapped adverts that hit visitors with fake security software have been discovered on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) website.

Analysis of the LSE site suggests that over the last 90 days, about 363 pages had hosted malware.

The LSE said its site was now safe and an investigation showed that ads provided by a third party were the culprit.

One victim claimed his PC was made unusable after being infected.

Security expert Paul Mutton fell victim when he viewed the site on 27 February.

He visited the LSE homepage to find out why some people reported that they could not access it.

The site was blocked by Firefox, he said, but accessible via Google's Chrome browser.

"It seemed to work with Chrome but then a few seconds later, without having to click on anything, pop-ups started to appear," he said.

The malicious code closed down several of the programs Mr Mutton was using and stopped new ones being started.

"I visited the site and it compromised my machine," said Mr Mutton.

While he was fighting to regain control of his machine, the malware kicked off fake virus alerts in pop-up windows. One window was a fake security scanner which claimed it had detected lots of different malware on the PC.

Mr Mutton said his machine fell victim despite being updated with the latest batch of virus definitions earlier in the day.

Bad ads

Analysis of the LSE homepage by Google's safe browsing scheme, which scans web pages for malicious code, found the site had been listed for "suspicious activity 6 time(s) over the past 90 days".

The last time it discovered malicious activity on the site was on 27 February, the day Mr Mutton visited.

Of the 1112 pages that Google scanned on the LSE site over the last 90 days, 363 were found to be hosting malware. The malicious code it found included scripting exploits and trojans.

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at security firm Sophos, said: "Our suspicion would be that it was the third-party advertising network running via the site that delivered the malware."

"This so-called 'malvertising' is big business for cyber criminals," said Mr Cluley.

"If they are able to plant their poisonous adverts in the streams being used by major websites then it can spread their attacks far and wide," he said.

While many sites rely on third-parties to provide adverts, that can have its risks, said Mr Cluley.

"Unfortunately when an infection does get through it's likely that the users will blame the website, not the ad network," he said.

Powered By WizardRSS - Full Text RSS Feeds

Vodafone network hit by break-in

28 February 2011 Last updated at 05:15 ET

Vodafone's mobile network has been disrupted following a break-in at one of its exchange centres.

The company said some customers had lost voice, text and internet access.

Engineers are working to fix the problem, according to a Vodafone statement.

It is not known how many users have been affected, however mobile customers from across the UK were using the micro-blogging site Twitter to report loss of service.

Vodafone said: "We had a break in last night at one of our technical facilities which resulted in damage done to some of our equipment.

"We are working quickly to restore these and will be back to normal as soon as we can."

Powered By WizardRSS - Full Text RSS Feeds