New Regulation for Influencers in Spain

From January 1st, 2021, both the Influencers and the Advertisers adhered to the Association for the Self-regulation of Commercial Communication (AUTOCONTROL) or the Spanish Association of Advertisers (AEA) will have to comply with the Code of conduct on the use of influencers in advertising that will take effect on that date so any advertisement must be identified as such, because otherwise it'd be considered covert.

In a way, the Code includes elements that can be found in Law 7/2010, of March 31st, General of Audiovisual Communication, Law 34/2002, of July 11th, of Services of the Information Society and of Electronic Commerce, or the Law 3/1991, of January 10th, of Unfair Competition, as these laws do not refer to influential people (the so called nowadays Influencers) because they are a new figure and they do not go into much detail either.

The new code is added to other regulartions of conduct that AUTOCONTROL has regarding areas such as toys or medicines and in some experts opinion's it is beneficial so the Influencers can reintegrate a little bit more into the system and it also makes everything easier for them regarding their knowledge of what the rules are as by reading four pages they can learn all they need to be taken into account to professionalize their activity.

This new regulation does not prevent them from continuing to show content spontaneously, which is what makes them influential; what happens is that then they attract brands which pay them for it or provide them with gifts that are also intended for marketing purposes, but now those gifts that these Influencers receive will be considered as a sort of income and, consequently, they will also need to declare them. So somehow Influencers will need to keep tabs and track of what they've got and they may therefore have to pay off an accountant as well, etc.

This code comes as an intent to start regulating some commercial activity on social networks because the regulation of the use of technology for advertising purposes was non-existing while everything that was traditional advertisement and marketing was already regulated. It is quite clear essentially that the field of Influencers needed since quite some time ago a regulation because this activity has become a profession and there are obviously many aspects that really had to be sorted out from a legal perspective.