PRESENTATION
AUTOCONTROL is the independent advertising self-regulatory organisation (SRO) in Spain, established in 1995 as a non-for-profit association. It is comprised of advertisers, advertising agencies, media and professional associations and its goal is to work for responsible advertising: truthful, legal, honest and loyal.
At the moment, it has around 600 direct members and 4,000 indirect ones, which are related with approximately 70% of the advertising investment in Spain.
From its beginnings, AUTOCONTROL manages the Spanish system of self-regulation of commercial communication on the basis of three main instruments:
- Codes of Conduct. The Code of Advertising Practice of AUTOCONTROL, based on the Code of Advertising and Marketing Communication Practice of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC Code), and the Sectoral Codes of Conduct whose application has been entrusted to AUTOCONTROL.
- Advertising Jury. Extrajudicial body for the disputes resolution that is responsible for resolving advertising complaints.
- Legal Counsel Advice. It is formed by experts in Advertising Law, Privacy and Data Protection and IT with exclusive dedication to AUTOCONTROL, who are in charge of advising companies in the fulfilment of their legal obligations in these areas.
Our activities include:
- The handling of complaints with regard to commercial communications, submitted by consumers, consumer associations, businesses and public offices.
- The advice to companies, through tools such as Copy Advice® (advice on the deontological and legal compliance of non-broadcast advertising campaigns before their broadcast); Cookie Advice® (technical and legal advice on the use of cookies); Data Advice® (technical and legal advice on data protection and Digital Regulation) and Web Advice® (advice on compliance with advertising regulations on websites).
- Training, providing courses and seminars addressed not only to law or advertising professionals who wish to deepen their knowledge in the field of advertising regulations or be updated in the same, but also to recent graduates who want to orient their professional career in this field.
Moreover, AUTOCONTROL actively collaborates, within the framework of the agreements it has signed, with several national, autonomous and municipal administrations that are competent in the control of advertising activity.
INTERNAL RULES AND OTHER DOCUMENTS
ACTIVITY REPORT
Prior consultation: since its launch, AUTOCONTROL has received almost 518,000 requests, from which 424,000 were Copy Advice® requests.
A posteriori control: since its creation, the AUTOCONTROL Advertising Jury has resolved more than 5,354 cases, in an average time of 14 days in the first instance.
CONSUMER INFORMATION CAMPAIGN
This campaign has been funded by the European Union’s Consumer Programme 2014-2020.
The content of this promotional campaign represents the views of the author only and is his/her sole responsibility; it cannot be considered to reflect the views of the European Commission and/or the Consumers, Health, Agriculture and Food Executive Agency (CHAFEA) or any other body of the European Union. The European Commission and the Agency do not accept any responsibility for use that may be made of the information it contains.