Travel companies advertising online will be placed under the scrutiny of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) from next year.
The advertising watchdog is extending its powers to cover all online marketing and advertising from March 1.
At present, its powers only cover offline advertising, like print and television.
Under the new regime, the ASA will also have the power to ban false marketing statements on social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter
But it will not extend to journalistic and editorial content related to causes and ideas.
Websites will be given until 1 March 2011 to comply with the new rules.
The expansion of the remit has been partly funded by a £200,000 donation from search engine giant Google.
ASA chairman Lord Chris Smith said: "We have received over 4,500 complaints since 2008 about marketing communications on websites that we couldn't deal with, but from 1 March anyone who has a concern about a marketing communication online will be able to turn to the ASA."
Click here to view original article by Bev Fearis, Travel Mole, Thursday 2nd September, 2010
