Earlier this week, Mary Engle, the Federal Trade Commission’s associate director of advertising practices, suggested to attendees at AdExchanger’s Clean Ads I/O conference that publishers could be held responsible for native ads deemed misleading that run on their properties. Read the original story by AdExchanger’s Sarah Sluis.
Readers interested in her comments can now check out the above video from the show. (The relevant remarks start at about the 17:20 mark.)
The FTC has not historically demanded accountability from publishers for misleading ads that may run on their properties, preferring to view those properties – be they websites, TV stations or other media platforms – purely as distribution mechanisms. But Engle said that in her personal view, publishers’ growing role in developing native ad creative means that they could be seen as responsible in the future.
“When the publisher is creating the content, they’re more involved in the process, and that creates some potential liability,” Engle said.
You can view this and other videos from the Clean Ads conference on AdExchanger’s YouTube page.
