Optus fined $5m for misleading advertising
Optus has received a fine of more than $5m for misleading advertising, losing a case made against it by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission last year.
The verdict made by a federal court saw the telco fined for $5.26m for misleading consumers about the download allowance they could get under an Optus price plan.
According to claims made in the campaign, for a monthly payment, a consumer would receive a headline data allowance of broadband which was then split into peak (midday to midnight) and off-peak (midnight to midday) data allowances.
Love how the ACCC acted so swiftly on this, in stark contrast to the numerous legitimate complaints against Telstra last year.
Wouldn’t say swiftly, this has been in train for a while now.
Would be interested to hear what these numerous complaints have been to the ACCC re: Telstra? Can you mention any in particular?
Optus has for sometime now pushed the boundaries in their advertising to the point where they probably know that they are going to eventually get stung, though thought maybe the positives will outweigh the negatives … which is questionable in this case.
Interesting comments from the Court about how the Court might treat different media differently in terms of assessing what is misleading. Basically suggesting that where a viewer is taking momentary notice of the ad you need to make sure it is clearer and disclaimers are less likely to work. Whereas, for media where viewers who are more actively engaged (such as internet users) the Court would assume that the viewers woul take more care in reading the ad. The Court noted:
• Internet users give the monitor their largely undivided attention. The relationship between a computer user and the internet is one of greater engagement and so a commercial is not only more likely to be noticed, but also much more likely to be watched.
• Television commercials “may be ignored under the weight of conversation between viewers; muted, until the advertisements have passed; disposed of altogether by changing channel; or, with the rise of simultaneous recording technology such as PVRS, at best, fast forwarded through (as with Foxtel’s IQ product) or, at worst, simply skipped altogether”.
• Newsprint commercials “suffer the indignity of having to compete to get the consumer’s attention”.
• Billboards tend to be seen by moving consumers (in a car or train) unless viewed stationary on a train platform or bus shelter, and this impacts on how careful billboard ads must be in not misleading consumers.