Slovakia

[SK] New Standards of Internet Advertising

IRIS 2008-1:1/28

Jana Markechová

Markechova Law Offices

The Association of Internet Media in the Slovak Republic (AIM) have adopted a document on Internet Advertising Standards ( Odporúčania pre internetovú reklamu ( Standards )) that was created on the basis of existing standards and the recommendation of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). It will enter into force on 1 January 2008. The members of the AIM are the biggest internet service providers in the Slovak Republic.

The main purpose of this document is to avoid negative reactions from those receiving internet advertising concerning, for example intrusive advertising formats, the high frequency of intrusive advertisement, and a lack of possibilities for controlling advertisements and their acoustics.

The adopted standards contain the following points:

- intrusive advertising covers formats including over the page Rich Media, pop-ups, pop-unders and “out of banner” actions;

- all video advertising formats (including all ‘over the page’ formats) should feature a set of standard control buttons, including “play”, “pause”, and “stop”. All advertising formats that use sound (including all embedded/in-page and Rich Media Formats) should feature a set of standard control buttons, including “sound on” and “sound off”;

- all interruptive Rich Media advertising formats (including all over the page formats) should feature a “close” button in the top right hand corner;

- all advertising formats that use sound should be user-initiated unless the sound is part of an existing audio stream requested by the user. Interactivity should be real, and should not mislead viewers;

- as a rule of thumb, viewers should not encounter more than three interruptions within half an hour visit to a website;

- the iconography and design of Windows buttons and other common computer interface tools shall never be used within advertising to intentionally confuse viewers and lead them to responding or clicking;

- only the media owner shall have the ability to determine whether the content or the advertising will be the first to load on a page or what the sequence of loading different page elements could be. The recommendation for the best practice is that the embedded content should load first followed by the embedded advertising; but this is still at the discretion of the media owner.

The adopted Standards constitute recommendations and are not legally binding. The compliance with the Standards is secured by the Association of Internet Media. Measures in case of possible breaches are consultations, reprehension and the disclosure of breaches.