According to chairman Dr Zuraidi Ishak, such guidelines will leverage on the existing guidelines by consumer associations with focus on e-commerce and online shopping.

Some industry leaders however feel that such guidelines are not necessary because it is business oriented and common sense.

Nevertheless, big companies like Google, Nuffnang, MSN and Yahoo who has big stakes in the online advertisement arena should welcome such guidelines because it will help them with litigation later in case of any issue arises. It is always good to have a safety net such as the guaranteed provided by bank negara for all depositors in Malaysia.

According to Nielsen, Internet advertising revenue (based on website spending by Yahoo, MSN, Forbes, Utusan, Sin Chew and The Star) rose from RM33.3mil in 2008 to RM63.7mil in 2011.

At the moment, legal action can be taken against advertisers who put out misleading advertisements online under the Consumer Protection Act 1999 and the Trade Descriptions Act 2011.

However, no action can be taken against a host website unless a consumer can prove that it has changed the content of an advertisement to include misleading elements, Dr Zuraidi said.

Under the new proposed guidelines, all parties (direct, indirect, agencies) will be subjected to the obligation of screening for advertisements before publishing them.

This will also be good news for Google, MSN and others who have local presence in Malaysia because this will be a good opportunity for securing consumer's preference. On the other hand, local public agencies and other parties responsible for enforcement will have more jobs and monitoring to go about.

For more information, refer to Ministry plans guidelines on web advertisements, but safety nets are already in place.