The Antitrust Shadow over Advertising Self-Regulation

Abstract

In response to public criticism and government regulation, the advertising community has developed programs of industry-wide self-regulation. A major difficulty with these programs, however, is the potential danger of antitrust violation. This paper reports findings of interviews with representatives of industry and government designed to clarify the limitations of the antitrust laws on advertising self-regulation. Guidelines for minimizing the antitrust risks of advertising self-regulation, which are derived from empirical data and the legal literature, are suggested.