Abstract (summary)
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Advertising, like other societal institutions is marked by a number of failures. Controlling or regulating an activity such as advertising involves several crucial tasks. my first purpose is to compare the various forms that advertising control has assumed in many developed economies -- with particular emphasis on advertising self-regulation (ASR). This article will also analyze the internal and external factors on which ASR's success has depended in the case of the traditional advertising media -- namely, press, radio, television and outdoor. The control of traditional advertising is apparently more developed than that of Internet advertising and it shows the areas where both systems need improving. Governments have often been quick to develop laws and regulations while self-regulatory bodies have extended their traditional rules to Internet advertising besides crafting some new guidelines and rules about such fast-developing problematic areas as data privacy, advertising to children, product placement in ads and viral advertising. Altogether, these factors promise a complex but manageable future for advertising self-regulation.