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
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.
Government Response
Rejected
HM Government Rejected
The Online Safety Act introduces duties for in-scope services to implement proportionate systems and processes for mitigating risks to users’ safety. Regulated services are required to monitor how effective these systems and processes are. Accordingly, Ofcom will judge the systems and processes that platforms have in place to address content captured under the Act’s safety duties, and take enforcement action where proportionate systems and processes are not in place, including by requiring certain steps or imposing fines via penalty notices. Under the regime, Ofcom does not make judgements on, or serve penalty notices in response to, individual pieces of content. To equip Ofcom with the powers this recommendation proposes, there would need to be an associated duty on platforms to tackle the monetisation of harmful content; this would necessitate defining ‘harmful content’, i.e. that which falls out of scope of the current duties but still has the capacity to cause harm to users. Imposing penalties in relation to individual pieces of content where providers haven’t been made aware of them could also have broader implications for policies designed to ensure the efficient functioning of the internet by providing limited protections to essential internet intermediary services. The Gold Standard is a certification scheme run by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB UK) that seeks to improve the digital advertising landscape through the implementation of standards for buyers and sellers of digital media space. Its purpose is to create a safe and responsible ecosystem, work towards greater consumer safety online, and increase business and consumer trust in online ads. The Working Group of the Online Advertising Taskforce is concerned with promoting awareness and uptake of the Gold Standard.
Addressee Bodies
Department for Science, Innovation and Technology
Timeline
Recommendation age 0.9 yr
Report published 11 Jul 2025