Carbonite defends "unlimited" backup claim

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By Nicole Kobie

Posted on 3 Aug 2012 at 12:06

Carbonite has been banned from calling its online backup "unlimited", but says it never heard from the advertising watchdog during the investigation.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled earlier this week that Carbonite can't use the term in its online marketing, because the firm imposes bandwidth restraints on uploads.

"Although unlimited amounts of data could be uploaded, we noted that if data uploads exceeded 200GB, less bandwidth would be available resulting in slower backup," the ASA said. "Because it did not make this clear, we concluded the ad was likely to mislead."

However, Carbonite didn't get a chance to defend itself. The ASA said Carbonite didn't respond to its requests for information despite making "every effort" to contact the firm. "They failed to respond to any of our correspondence, which is why the adjudication cites their lack of response."

A Carbonite spokeswoman told PC Pro it "didn’t respond to the ASA investigation because we were never made aware of it; we were made aware of their final adjudication only".

Carbonite said its backup was unlimited, and the claim clearly referred to the storage space offered to customers, not bandwidth. "Carbonite’s focus is on the speed with which it restores files to customers who are recovering from a data disaster, versus the speed of the initial backup process," it added.

The watchdog said the ruling stands, but the company can appeal "if they wish" - which Carbonite said it intends to do. "We hope that – with more information on Carbonite’s backup processes – the ASA may reconsider their decision," Carbonite said.

Unlimited claims

Carbonite has some chance of winning its appeal, even if the ASA includes the bandwidth restriction.

The ASA has ruled several times on "unlimited" claims, saying ISPs can use the term "unlimited" if they manage traffic, but only if it's a "moderate" restriction. They can only use the phrases "totally" or "truly" unlimited if there are no "provider-imposed" restrictions.

According to Carbonite's website, the standard home service "allocates more bandwidth to users doing a typical initial backup of less than 35GB, and less to users after their backup exceeds 200GB" for the initial backup. That restriction applies to fewer than 2% of customers, it said.