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On 3 February 2021, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), the United Kingdom’s regulator of advertising across all media, banned Ryanair’s “jab and go” TV campaign on the grounds that it encouraged the public to act irresponsibly once they had received a coronavirus vaccination shot. The ban came just days after the Ryanair chief executive, Michael O’Leary, stated in a BBC Radio 4 interview that he expected a revival of European beach holidays in the summer of 2021. The two controversial television advertisements were launched on Boxing Day and were seen between...

On 3 December 2020, the European Commission presented a European Democracy Action Plan (EDAP), which aims at empowering citizens and building more resilient democracies across the European Union. The EDAP is one of the major initiatives of the Commission's Work Programme for 2020, as announced in the Political Guidelines of President von der Leyen. The Commission expects that the EDAP, taken together with the new European rule of law mechanism, the new Strategy to strengthen the application of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, the Media and Audiovisual Action Plan as well as the package of...

On 6 November, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation made public a Draft Law on Audiovisual Communication (Anteproyecto de Ley General de la Comunicación Audiovisual) with the aim of transposing the European Union's amended Audiovisual Media Services Directive and updating the regulation of the sector so that there is a level playing field for all competing agents. The draft is open to public information and consultation until 3 December and, once approved, will substitute the current Law 7/2010 on Audiovisual Communication. The main changes proposed in relation...

On 24 September and 8 October 2020, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the United Kingdom's independent body established to uphold information rights, imposed fines on two companies for sending thousands of nuisance marketing texts and unlawful marketing emails at the height of the current pandemic. In September 2020, Digital Growth Experts Limited (DGEL) was issued with a monetary penalty of GBP 60 000 in relation to a serious contravention of Regulations 22 and 23 of the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 (PECR). The PECR provide for specific...

On 14 August 2020, the European Commission published a Report and Study on the functioning of the Memorandum of Understanding on online advertising and intellectual property rights (MoU). The MoU is a voluntary agreement facilitated by the European Commission designed to limit advertising on websites and mobile applications that infringe copyright or disseminate counterfeit goods, signed by 28 advertisers, advertising intermediaries and associations in 2018 (see IRIS 2018-2/7). The MoU contains commitments, for example, that signatories undertake reasonable measures to minimise the placement of...