Valerie Cowan Surfs the Net

ADVERTISING watchdogs are to get their teeth into ads on websites for the first time.

The Advertising Standards Authority is currently developing an online complaints service, which will be launched next year.

It is being devised in response to the growing number of complaints the ASA is receiving about adverts on the internet.

The organisation also wants to be ready for the expected explosion in e-commerce.

The ASA has no statutory powers but generally secures co-operation from the advertising industry within the UK print media and hopes to extend this role to the internet.

Chris Reed, ASA external affairs manager, said: "We are currently working on drawing up a complaints form to deal with internet advertising and expect to begin accepting complaints from next year.

"The massive scale of the web means we do not want to launch the service until we have some idea of the scale of the task.

"The idea is that we will be able to accept e-mail complaints so that the public can send us an image of the actual ad.

"This way we intend to get around the problem that adverts and websites on the internet can change so quickly. We do not envisage too many problems tracking down the advertisers as we have become very expert at the task over the years."

The ASA currently deals with around 12,000 complaints about traditional advertising every year and upheld 30 out of 92 complaints about internet advertising last year.

Mr Reed said that current pan-European agreements between advertising watchdogs are likely to extend to the internet so that any advertisement on the web would be dealt with by the authority in the country of origin. Window of opportunity THE internet has opened up new opportunities for would-be authors.

Not only is there an ever-increasing number of websites dedicated to supporting writers, but it has given people the opportunity to make their work available to a wide audience without having to find a publisher who will put their work on the printed page.

Elizabeth Ashworth from Blackburn is one writer who has found the net useful in her work.

Part-time supply teacher Elizabeth has had the opening pages of her novel, Ten-Fifty-Six, published online.

It was selected for the "Hall of Fame" in the website of Jacqui Hewitt's Writers' Bureau, which provides support to authors.

Elizabeth, 44, said: "It's always been my ambition to write a novel, and now having written it, it's my ambition to have it published, so I was thrilled to see part of it on the internet."

You can find the extract from Elizabeth's novel at http://www.jacquibwb.ndirect.co.uk/writers/hall.html.

She also recommends the following sites: http://www.finewords.com;http://www.ukwriters.com; http://www.chalman.demon.co.uk Tony tops chat lines poll TONY Blair is the person most web users would like to meet in an online chat room, according to a new poll.

The Prime Minister gained almost twice as many votes as entrepreneur Richard Branson in the survey, by internet chat site AOL Live, which asked people who they would most like to quiz.

South African President Nelson Mandela was third, and boxer Muhammad Ali fourth.

The questions members of the public would ask veered from the serious to the trivial.

President Mandela would find himself quizzed about his time in captivity and the future for his nation, whereas showbiz stars would find the focus on their personal lives, or on trivia.

Tom Laidlaw, senior producer with AOL Live, said the varied results of the survey, conducted by NOP, showed the strengths of internet chat shows.

"One of the great benefits of the internet has been cutting out the middle man - removing many of the barriers to information that previously existed," he said.

IT'S not the most sophisticated privacy tool on the internet, but anyone with James Bond-style aspirations will enjoy Thunk. The website (http://www.

thunk.com) will scramble and unscramble messages, thus allowing you to send top secret information to your friends via e-mail.

NOW I would never condone violence - but there's something deliciously daft about the Surrey Stick Figure Theatre of Death (http://www.c-cat.demon.co.

uk/theatre). As the name suggests, it has stick figures killing and being killed - often in short versions of famous dramatic tragedies. Sounds grisly, but don't worry - stick figures don't bleed very much.

YOU'RE never too far from a McDonalds restaurant in America - or anywhere else for that matter. There are around 24,500 of them around the world. But if you're off to the States on holiday, you can ensure you never miss out on a Big Mac by plotting your route on the McDonalds website (http://

www.mcdonalds.com). Simply put in your starting point and your final destination and it'll tell you where all the McDonalds are along the way. Or you could just try eating somewhere else now and again!

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.