Truth in Advertising?

PerformanceEng wonders: "I work as an engineer for a large technology company in the U.S., and have been privy to what I find a interesting practice. It's well known that marketing data sheets often paint the best picture of a product while leaving the devil in the details. I've come to expect this, and when I am evaluating technology, I always have a skeptic's eye for claims made by the sales and marketing folks. However, I've also witnessed our product go into test labs (usually for the purposes of running a series of tests for a 'bake off' in a trade publication). Not uncommon is the attempt to 'tune' the configuration of the device under test to perform in the best light (not unlike tuning your car to pass emissions tests). I have seen it go as far as exploiting weaknesses in the test that, if the test operator discovered, would be considered bad faith. To the other engineers: Are you aware of this kind of practice at your company? To the IT professionals: How much faith do you put in these sorts of publications and their 'bake offs'? To everyone: When does spin doctoring cross the line and become false advertising?"

Comments

False Advertising

[Anonymous Coward]

What about all those people on Slashdot who claim First Post but fail it? Isn't that false advertising?

Bill Hicks (RIP) said it all..

[little_fluffy_clouds]

"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself. No, no, no it's just a little thought. I'm just trying to plant seeds. Maybe one day, they'll take root - I don't know. You try, you do what you can. Kill yourself.

Seriously though, if you are, do. Aaah, no really, there's no rationalisation for what you do and you are Satan's little helpers, Okay - kill yourself - seriously. You are the ruiner of all things good, seriously. No this is not a joke, you're going, "there's going to be a joke coming," there's no fucking joke coming. You are Satan's spawn filling the world with bile and garbage. You are fucked and you are fucking us. Kill yourself. It's the only way to save your fucking soul, kill yourself. Planting seeds.

I know all the marketing people are going, "he's doing a joke... there's no joke here whatsoever. Suck a tail-pipe, fucking hang yourself, borrow a gun from a Yank friend - I don't care how you do it. Rid the world of your evil fucking machinations. I know what all the marketing people are thinking right now too, "Oh, you know what Bill's doing, he's going for that anti-marketing dollar. That's a good market, he's very smart." Oh man, I am not doing that. You fucking evil scumbags! "Ooh, you know what Bill's doing now, he's going for the righteous indignation dollar. That's a big dollar. A lot of people are feeling that indignation. We've done research - huge market. He's doing a good thing." Godammit, I'm not doing that, you scum-bags!

Quit putting a godamm dollar sign on every fucking thing on this planet!

"Ooh, the anger dollar. Huge. Huge in times of recession. Giant market, Bill's very bright to do that." God, I'm just caught in a fucking web! "Ooh the trapped dollar, big dollar, huge dollar. Good market - look at our research. We see that many people feel trapped. If we play to that and then separate them into the trapped dollar..." How do you live like that? And I bet you sleep like fucking babies at night, don't you?"

[We miss you, Bill.]

Dilbert

[behindthewall]

Reminds me of the strips where Wally had to impersonate the demo.

When the image got fuzzy, they tried a razor.

Benchmarking Tuning: Just as bad as Karma Whoring

[Nova Express]

The sort of people who would tune their software for a specific benchmark are the same sort of people who would karma whore here on Slashdot by throwing off-topic lines with guaranteed Slashdot appeal.

And you know who else hates that type of benchmarking whoring? Linus Torvalds, that's who! Linus would never stoop to such a thing, because Linus is a great guy!

And you know who else would never do it? Apple Computer, the people who make the greatest computers in the world! They would never stoop to rigging benchmarks!

Or karma whoring.

Its an

[northcat]

Truthful Advetising is an oxymoron.

Truth in advertising

[ShatteredDream]

Isn't that like.....

Sexual freedom in Saudi Arabia
Fiscal accountability in corporate America
Bug-free programming in Microsoft products...
Intelligence and integrity in GWB?

Re:In my company

[vettemph]

Your an Engineer?

Question and Answer

[auburnate]

When does spin doctoring cross the line and become false advertising?"

When you get caught ...

Like they say,

[td]

there's three kinds of prevarication: lies, damned lies, and benchmarks.

Re:Consumer audio

[ben_rh]

Although the sonic improvements of a single Signature power cable/power conditioner are transferred fully through conventional components power cords, use of an additional Magnan Signature power cord to connect to the component will improve the sound greatly. The improvement achieved by a single Magnan power cable are directly additive with additional cables in series.

(emphasis mine)

Or, in other words, the more cables you daisy-chain, the better the effect?

That's fradulent.