Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made on the impact of programmatic advertising fraud on (1) businesses, and (2) consumers.

His Majesty’s Government recognises the impact that fraudulent advertising can have on people’s lives and is committed to increasing protections against it. Data from the City of London Police / the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau found 35,000 frauds linked to digital advertising from April 2020 to March 2021, which carried an estimated overall cost of £400 million.

As set out in HM Government’s response to the consultation on the Online Advertising Programme in July, the programme’s focus is on tackling illegal advertising and increasing protections for children and young people under 18 against advertisements for products and services which it is illegal to sell to them. It is intended that all forms of paid-for fraudulent advertising will be in scope. Further detail of the proposed regulation will be set out in a second consultation, which will be published in due course.