Should We Allow Advertising on .gov websites?

As reported by NextGov, yesterday there was a column in Wall Street Journal stating that .gov websites should accept advertisements.

In the column, he suggested that IRS could make between $50-100 million in advertising alone from their website.

In an interesting pilot study, WA Department of Transportation is working on a pilot of including advertising in their 410 million annual page views - really fascinating study and use case

At one level, we are already doing a lot of advertising on gov't property

-Bus stops - full of ads

-Inside bus & subway - full of ads

-TSA bins - have Zappos ads in about 10 major airports

Budgets are tight at all levels and may be a way to increase revenue.

So what do you think, should we allow advertising on .gov websites?
Are their cases where you think it's okay?
Certain types of sponsorships?

Tags: government advertising

Awesome

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Permalink Reply by Colin Walker on August 18, 2011 at 12:37pm

I've been immersed in this issue since early this year. Municipal park and recreation departments have long published program brochures, and it seems that more and more are selling advertising in the publications to fund production. As we move into the new reality of trimmed budgets, and make tough choices on whether to continue or eliminate programs and services, advertising is one of the areas that is cut first. Unfortunately, cutting advertising - as expected - frequently results in decreasing revenue.

In an effort to mitigate cuts to our internal advertising/print budget, we've made significant shifts in information dissemination - the number of issues of program brochures have been reduced, the print run has been scaled back, and we are relying more on email distribution of information. On one hand, budget challenges have forced us to be more innovative (I now have an e-newsletter that goes out to 21k+ people every month, and have the ability to do targeted email advertising), but on the other hand, the concerns about the digital divide are amplified even more.

Early this year, we began to craft a policy regarding advertising in our program brochure. What we found was that there are many good examples of government advertising policies out there, and it's in our best interests to develop a solid policy and implementation procedure before accepting advertisements. We are developing the policy for print advertising so that it would be fairly easy to adjust to include web advertising.

While I do not know if print advertising and web advertising are one in the same when looking at case law, I do know that there is a solid foundation of case law dealing with what governments can and cannot do when setting policies for print advertising ("print" being broadly defined as ink on media - this could be the side of buses, magazines, transit benches, etc). The danger is whether by accepting advertisements you create a public forum... it is more desirable to create a limited public forum, and your policy will help ensure you don't set yourself up for having to accept advertisements from everyone.

Our specific question was related to potential "competitors" buying advertising in our program brochure. For example, we run a fitness center at a community center -- what if a commercial fitness center wanted to buy advertising? Would we have to accept it? The answer was "yes." We can limit advertising in the publications based on content (no political advertising, no issue-based advertising, commercial only, no adult topics, no alcohol/tobacco/firearms, no illegal content, etc.), but cannot restrict types of vendors.

We've discussed exploring whether advertisements could be added to our website, and our thought is that eventually we will probably have to address that. We're not there yet, though, and would rather have others develop policies and test them in court.

I'd be interested in hearing from any legal-minded folks reading this thread how analogous print advertising policies are to web advertising policies - does case law relating to limited public forums translate to electronic media? Are there any issues if we were to implement advertising, contract with a third party vendor, and have non-permissable content slip through? I'd be hesitant to contract with a third party for the specific reason that "non-PG" ads frequently slip through on sites.

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Permalink Reply by William Manthorpe on August 18, 2011 at 3:10pm

No advertising on government sites. Indeed, there should not be any on GovLoop either. Check out my website www.learntolead.net. If we are trying to make a contribution to public service then it should be a "contribution". And the cost to maintain a website is small enough.

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Permalink Reply by Dale S. Brown on August 19, 2011 at 2:43pm

I think it is a big mistake to allow advertising on government websites. Chris Poirier pointed out that there are regulatory and legal reasons. But advertisements will cause the agency to loose the perception of evenhandedness- and possibly even be influenced by the advertisers. Especially if the crowd that wants government to be run like a business decides that the web should be self-supporting and get a portion of their financing from the ads.

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Permalink Reply by Jenny Groome on August 19, 2011 at 3:25pm

loose any credibility to site (no matter HOW good the information is) -

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Permalink Reply by Dan Schramm on August 20, 2011 at 3:33pm

Government entities are elected by their local constituents and have a responsibility to explore this issue (like others) particularly in these trying financial times where key staff/services are being cut and costs to maintain/enhance and host such websites are rising.

The benefits and risks can be weighed accordingly by each entity and each have the opportunity to have their citizens respond/weigh in on the issue. Remember there are risks in everything a government entity undertakes. Gauging and measuring the probability of such risks is something that only each entity can do as they analyze the costs and related benefits.

Credibility is in the eye of the beholder. What you see as losing credibility may be viewed by another constituent or local business owner as a great way to promote goods/services to their local community in a cost effective manner while indirectly spurring local sales which in turn keeps sales taxes local within that community/area. Plus if the advertisements do not affect the viewers user experience and navigation then it puts the onus on the viewer whether they elect to even pay attention much less click on an ad if interested.

If an entity elects to go forward on this matter, then passing a local ordinance on what is allowed/not allwowed (tobacco/alcohol/political ads/non-profits/etc) is something we recommend. This dictates the policy on online advertising (or modifying an existing policy that might already be in place for kiosk/bus stop/bus/etc advertising).

The ordinance typically follows form on court upheld restrictions on select types of advertising that governments can restrict (alcohol, tobacco, etc and even on all non-profits so you don't have religious, political, etc come into play).

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Permalink Reply by Dan Schramm on December 2, 2011 at 12:19pm

Initiatives on government advertising continue. City of Chicago goes out for RFQ.

Emanuel looks to attract more advertising: City offers marketers space on trash cans, website, water bills

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-emanuel-marketing-c...
Emanuel looks to attract more advertising
City offers marketers space on trash cans, website, water bills
By Kristen Mack, Chicago Tribune reporter

November 26, 2011
Mayor Rahm Emanuel not only wants to sell ad space on bridge houses and
trash cans, he's looking at stuffing corporate fliers in water bills,
selling exclusive vending rights at city facilities and allowing promotional
sponsorships of public programs.

As part of the mayor's 2012 budget plan to raise $25 million from marketing
the city, the Emanuel administration put out a call for marketing firms to
help the city identify opportunities and negotiate contracts with potential
advertisers.

The goal is "generating the maximum value for the City's corporate fund
operating budget while limiting the social impacts of such advertising
activities, including visual pollution, and preserving the continuity and
integrity of the City's image," according to the request for proposals
posted on the city's website last week.

That website, by the way, is among the public spots where people may one day
find advertisers competing for their attention. So are street sweepers,
snowplows, buildings, overpasses and traffic control boxes on sidewalks.

All of which worries observers who were upset at Emanuel's first try at
generating ad revenue earlier this month by leasing space on the historic
Wabash Avenue bridge houses over the Chicago River.

The result was red, white and blue signs for Bank of America stuck on to the
limestone walls, where they will remain through Dec. 12. The city says it
made $4,500 from the deal, but critics said it was an assault on Chicago's
architectural heritage.

The lack of standards suggests that "anything is fair game," said Jean
Follett, interim executive director of Landmarks Illinois.

"Whatever you ask we'll negotiate it," Follett said. "We've put ourselves in
a corner; what you get instead of tax increases is fees and ads in your
public spaces and in your water bills."

The city solicitation, which is only the initial step in the marketing
plans, breaks public assets into six categories, including physical
property, vending and product licensing, mail and the city's website. It
offers little guidance on how to differentiate between the value of a trash
can and public landmarks.

"The Mayor and his administration are exploring any and all innovative
options that will bring new revenue into the City to avoid reductions in
services the City delivers and any additional financial strains on Chicago
taxpayers," Lois Scott, the city's chief financial officer, said in a
statement responding to questions about the plans. "The city has numerous,
diverse places and things to market, and we're ready to work together under
the right set of guidelines to market what Chicago has to offer."

Former Mayor Richard Daley first proposed the idea of allowing corporate ads
on bridge houses. The head of the company that won the resulting contract to
market the bridge houses - leading to the recent bank ad - said the city can
make money while protecting its landmarks.

"The overall impact of the concept in the long run needs to be sensitive to
the needs of the city and maintain its architectural integrity," said
Phillip Lynch, president and owner of Lincolnshire-based Fresh Picked Media.
"There's pop art type executions that don't have to be as direct as
advertising and are clever and add a theme."

Companies that sell breath fresheners could erect ads outside of
restaurants, Lynch said, and gray traffic light boxes could be turned into
gift boxes for the holidays.

kmack@tribune.com

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Permalink Reply by Dan Schramm on February 17, 2012 at 3:56pm

State of Washington Department of Transportation has launched online ads off their travel pages website (they already have ads on their ferry boats).

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Permalink Reply by Dan Munz on November 17, 2012 at 10:32pm

No no no no no no no. Not because of endorsement or authority or anything like that, but because having to sell ad space makes you do ridiculous things like forced interstitials, purposeless pagination, bizarre "slideshows," and generally a bunch of other user-hostile pageview-maximizing techniques. Making federal websites that don't suck for users is hard enough without financial incentives pointing in the opposite direction.

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Permalink Reply by Jenny Groome on November 20, 2012 at 9:00am

I agree - except one point - many websites for users do not suck. And users are so varied - sometimes helps to differentiate presentation of information. One landing page, sure - one site, perhaps not in best interest of anyone.