“Unlimited” is limited, but “truly unlimited” isn’t. Got it?

Wednesday, October 5th, 2011

We’ve long known the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) takes a rather liberal view of dictionary definitions, but an adjudication against T-Mobile this morning at last provides clarity over exactly how our fearless advertising watchdog defines the term “unlimited”.

T-Mobile was sent to the headmaster’s office for describing its smartphone data contracts as “truly unlimited”, even though it barred services such as tethering, VoIP and P2P.

That was beyond the pale, according to the advertising overlord, which delivered the following guidance in its adjudication:

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Who are the real broadband conmen: the ISPs or the ASA?

Thursday, June 30th, 2011

When you’ve dug yourself a hole, stop digging. Or if you’re the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), keep going until you hit the molten core of the Earth itself.

Regular PC Pro readers will know how the ASA has allowed ISPs to over-egg the speed of their broadband connections by permitting them to advertise fantasy “up to” speeds, which Ofcom’s research has proven time and again are pure fiction. Even Ofcom itself called for this insidious practice to stop over a year ago, since when the ASA has dithered with a year-long consultation on the use of “up to” speeds, but still hasn’t arrived at a conclusion.

Consequently, one ISP took matters into its own hands. Last year, Virgin Media launched its Stop The Broadband Con website, calling on ISPs to advertise typical rather than maximum speeds – very similar recommendations to those made by Ofcom itself.

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ASA: CD ripper “incites” law breaking

Wednesday, March 30th, 2011

God bless the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). This fearless defender of everything that’s right, moral and upstanding has allowed ISPs to advertise fantasy headline speeds and limited “unlimited” packages for donkey’s years, but when it comes to the really big issues, it’s not afraid to wield the big stick.

The latest victim of the ASA’s wrath is 3GA Ltd, the company that makes the Brennan JB7 –  “a CD player with a hard disk that stores up to 5,000 CDs”.

The adverts for the Brennan highlight the convenience of ripping your entire CD collection to the device – much like we’ve all been doing for years on our PCs, iPods and other MP3 players.

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Named and shamed: the “unlimited” liars

Friday, March 25th, 2011

For years, fixed and mobile broadband providers have used the term “unlimited” to advertise services that are anything but.

We’ve moaned about it for years, and last month even our normally docile telecoms regulator said the term “unlimited” was being abused.  “There are people offering unlimited packages that contain a fair-use policy that means what you are getting is not unlimited,” said Ofcom chief executive Ed Richards. “If you are claiming unlimited then it needs to be unlimited.”

It seems the industry wasn’t listening. New data tariffs are still being advertised as “unlimited” even when they have specific download caps.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has been conducting a review of broadband advertising, but frankly, we’re tired of waiting for this weak-kneed, self-regulating body to get its act together.

So, from now on, whenever we see a new tariff being advertised as “unlimited” when it patently isn’t, we’re going to add it to our blog of shame.

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Why I’ll be setting the ASA on dodgy online estate agents

Tuesday, March 1st, 2011

I’ve been hunting for a new flat for months now — so long, that no-one around the office even pretends to listen to my various estate agent complaints anymore.

As my search invariably focuses on online listings and websites, the one thing that gets my back up more than anything is adverts for flats that don’t exist or have long since been let, or ads that use photos that aren’t remotely accurate (as in, of entirely different, invariably nicer places).

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Broadband speed con – it’s all our fault

Thursday, January 27th, 2011

Dear readers of PC Pro, we owe you an apology. For many a year now we’ve been banging on about the fantasy “up to” speeds advertised by Britain’s broadband providers, and all along you didn’t really give a monkeys.

Despite buying broadband-themed issues of the magazine in record numbers, and filling our comments sections with gripes about your pitiful connection speeds, you never really cared that the “up to 24Mbits/sec” line you were sold was denying you access to publicly funded services such as the iPlayer or ruining your business, did you?

At least that’s what our spine-free advertising watchdogs are claiming. The consultation document released by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) shows remarkable disdain for the broadband public; a grudging irritation that they’ve been forced to even consider this issue after years of outright advertising abuse by Britain’s ISPs.

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An end to “unlimited” broadband ads, at last?

Thursday, June 17th, 2010

Breaking news: there’s been a freak breakout of common sense at the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). After years of letting broadband providers – both fixed and mobile – get away with using the term “unlimited” on ads for services that have data caps as ludicrously tight as 250MB, the ASA seems to have finally realised something’s not quite right.

“We’ve looked at a number of complaints about individual ads in the telecoms sector regarding access speeds and usage limits and found that applying a single policy to how telecoms providers advertise can pose significant challenges,” the ASA’s communications and policy manager, Lynsay Taffe, told New Media Age.

“It’s important that we look at this on a broader policy level with service providers, other regulators and consumer groups, rather than relying on individual ASA rulings that focus on a particular service on one platform. Therefore, the ASA has invited CAP [the Committee of Advertising Practice] and BCAP [the British Code of Advertising Practice] to review broadband speed and ‘unlimited’ use claims.”

Terrific. But instead of consulting the world and his wife and taking another six months to come up with a policy, why doesn’t the ASA just consult a dictionary and find out what the world “unlimited” means? And then make the advertisers stick to it.

Why Britain’s watchdogs have fewer teeth than goldfish

Friday, November 20th, 2009

If there’s one thing that makes me angry, it’s other people not getting angry enough. Britain has swathes of so-called regulators and “watchdogs” monitoring everything from advertising, to telecoms, to the protection of our private data, and they’re all about as much use as a toaster in a bath.

Take the Information Commissioner, for example. Christopher Graham may have started talking tough about cracking down on data leaks when he waltzed into his six-figure salary job this summer, but his feeble actions speak far louder than his fighting talk.

It was the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) who revealed that staff at a UK mobile network had illegally sold thousands of customer account details to brokers. That data was used to cold-call customers nearing the end of their contracts, in a bid to convince them to move to a rival network.

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Materialistic airheads good; £44 USB cables bad

Wednesday, October 1st, 2008

There’s a wee frisson of excitement every Wednesday morning on the PC Pro newsdesk. For Wednesday is the day that brings the esoteric bag of brilliance that is the Advertising Standard Authority’s latest batch of ajudications.

More often than not, the only tech interest is BT and Virgin Media using the ASA to settle their latest petty dispute over whose dad is actually biggest. But occassionally, just occasionally, the ASA delivers a verdict of such sumptuous entertainment, that it earns a round of spontaneous applause from even us world-weary cynics. 

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