The ASA is an industry body -- it's not a government regulator. Which gives it much greater freedom to rule on this. (It's harder to sue, as it's a body that the industry signs up to in order to protect the reputation of the advertising industry in the UK.)
> The ASA is an industry body -- it's not a government regulator.
I was surprised by this. I thought they were a stronger regulator. But a simple bit of reading of their website shows that while they have some teeth for broadcast adverts (because they cooperate with OFCOM and various Trading Standards organisations) they lack teeth for anything else, even though they claim to cover online ads. Thus, they have a list of non-compliant websites who continue to make misleading claims.
