In response to the allegations that the News of the World newspaper has been illegally hacking phones, including those of a missing girls who was later found murdered, advertisers are withdrawing their campaigns from the paper.

Ford and numerous others have left and Proctor& Gamble have said they are reviewing the situation. Mitsubishi have said that they are going to donate the money that they would have normally spent on their now withdrawn campaign to the charity Childline.

The campaign was begun by Melissa Harrington, a freelance writer from her Twitter account @the_Z_factor. She said, “The only way to show the company how people really felt was by hitting them where it hurts: their wallets. And while I didn’t think I could reach their regular readers to ask them not to buy the paper, I realised who I could influence, with a following wind and enough people behind me: their advertisers.”