Re: ASA - Lap dogs
"ASA seem to work very hard not to see problems at the very least until the damage has been done."
See my first comment. Once you realise the ASA is paid for by the people producing the misleading adverts, perhaps their reluctance to do anything makes more sense.
It's only in the last few years that they've been asked to earn their keep. Prior to 2003 they had to deal with a few hundred complaints per year - that's now thousands per month and climbing. Their first reaction to the increasing volume was to try and ban anyone who submitted "too many" complaints or pointed out that they were sharing performance stats with others - a response which almost got them rendered superfluous as it got pointed out by several people in Whitehall that this was a refusal to self-regulate. Following that they simply started accepting and burying complaints until it was clear this course of action wasn't going to work either.
They've always done the absolute minimum necessary to stave off government regulators stepping in and they'll always be like that unless their feet are firmly held to the fire.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
