Copyright cops take aim at high street stores

THE FRIENDLY Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) has called out a number of big name firms for supporting 'piracy' by advertising on web sites that offer download services.

FACT said that in the past year it had been closely following download web sites that offer content for free but make money from advertising, and spotted a number of high street stores and high profile firms advertising on them.

In a call to The INQUIRER, which followed a read of the story on the Daily Mail, which in turn followed a story at the Times, a spokesperson said that FACT had spotted adverts from 83 firms, including Tesco, British Telecom, British Gas and Vauxhall on filesharing web sites, and had screengrabbed the evidence and sent hard copies to the firms in question.

These documents were coupled with advice about how to stop advertising on the web sites, which are unnamed by FACT, and an offer of assistance in that area. Some firms responded right away, including Microsoft, Santander and Virgin Media, and removed their ads, some worked slower, and others did nothing at all.

The watchdog admitted that it might be the case that many firms do not know where their adverts are appearing, due to the nature of online advertising.

Online advertising, at least the regulated part of it, is covered by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, and we have asked that organisation to comment.

In the meantime, a spokesperson for Tesco told us that it strives to adhere to the guidelines that cover online advertising, but was starting to realise that perhaps these were not strong enough. "In line with best practice for the advertising industry, we only work with websites [and] networks that are Internet Advertising Sales House (IASH) accredited," said a spokesperson.

"We are looking into this specific issue with our advertising agency who are looking to utilise ad blocking technology as a further safeguard."

The IASH code is described as a formal framework for members that deal with advertisers, agencies, networks and web site owners.

According to the IASH its purpose is to give those buying, selling or brokering internet advertising space a clear understanding of the types of inventory that can and cannot be used when fulfilling an ad insertion order. µ