'Unlimited' misleading on throttled broadband: Federal Court
ACCC wins Optus advertising case
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Australia's Federal Court has handed the ACCC a win over the misleading use of the word “unlimited” in broadband advertisements.
In a decision handed down in Melbourne this week, Justice Anthony North of the Federal Court agreed with the ACCC that the word “unlimited” in Optus advertisements was misleading.
Under the plans the telco was advertising, customer connections were throttled to 256 Kbps speeds once the customer had reached the plan’s 15GB or 30GB download cap.
The judge found that the advertisements only disclosed this condition in “very fine print”, and as a result had not “sufficiently and prominently” advised customers of the impact of the throttling.
This, Justice North said, contravened Section 52 of Australia’s Trade Practices Act. ®
COMMENTS
Two nations divided by a common lanuage
It seems a similar divide exists between Australia and the UK.
You see, here in the UK, the definition of 'unlimited' is something which has a monthly cap, throttling/shaping applied during peak times and gets you either booted off or forced to upgrade to an unlimiteder package if you use too much.
Whereas in Australia, it would appear that 'unlimited' means something which is limit-free...
How odd!
Sub editors.
They are very useful. They help young writers grow, learn and hopefuly become better at their craft. Also: every now and again they kill your "babies*."
*Not actual babies, but as a writer you can sometimes become attached to an article, only to have it (most often rightly) torn to shreds.
Its about time
A spade was called a spade, and the word Unlimited is removed from ALL adverts from companies who Cap their data or service in any way, as its NOT unlimited is it? No, right then, how hard can this be?
The use of the word Unlimited should be banned unless the service truly is, if it isn't, then don't use the word, its really quite Simpliez!
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