Controlling Deceptive Advertising in China: An Overview

Abstract

Deceptive advertising has been a key topic of advertising regulation research. However, the existing literature focuses primarily on the Western experience, and practices in developing countries have received little attention. As an initial effort to investigate the topic in the context of an emerging market, this article applies Petty and Kopp's framework to examine how China controls deceptive advertising from five aspects: initiation, interpretation, deception, verification, and remediation. The author discusses the contradictions in the Chinese system and explores implications for foreign firms operating in China.