Thailand’s Electronic Transactions Development Agency (ETDA) issued guidelines for managing advertisements on digital platform services (DPSs) earlier this year. These guidelines aim to prevent fraud, illegal product or service offerings, and inducements to commit illegal acts, and are likely to provide a basis for greater regulation of this issue in the future.

Key obligations for DPS business operators under the guidelines are detailed below.

Advertiser Screening and Data Collection

• Verification and collection: Business operators must establish processes for verifying and collecting advertiser data. This includes steps, methods, and required information for advertiser registration.
• Identity verification: Business operators should follow identity verification requirements for advertiser registration. This may include using identity verification results from other identity providers or conducting their own identity verification processes with a minimum identity assurance level (IAL) of IAL2.
• Data storage: Advertiser data must be stored in a machine-readable format. Business operators must maintain records for watchlists, blacklists, and whitelists.

Prepublication Advertisement Review

• Review process: Business operators should review advertisements before publication. This review should consider factors such as prohibited or restricted advertisements, required permissions, and avoiding sensitive user data.

Postpublication Monitoring

• Advertisement monitoring: Business operators must monitor published advertisements using automated systems, staff, or contracted personnel. Criteria for prioritizing reviews should be established.
• Reporting channels: Business operators must provide channels for users to report illegal or inappropriate advertisements. Reports must be promptly addressed, prioritizing cases involving intellectual property owners or multiple credible reports.
• Advertiser account monitoring: Business operators must monitor advertiser accounts. This includes considering factors such as the number of reports/flags received and compliance with service agreements and community standards.

For more information on this initiative from the ETDA, or on any aspect related to Thailand’s regulations for DPSs, please contact Athistha (Nop) Chitranukroh at [email protected], Thammapas Chanpanich at [email protected], Pornpan Wichawut at [email protected], Rada Lamsam at [email protected], or Karnravee Jitvilai at [email protected].