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NZ Business Fined For Out-of-Date Website
Peter writes "A story reports that a restaurant in New Zealand has been fined NZ$3000 for failing to keep its website up to date. By having out-of-date menus and prices on its website, it has breached the Fair Trading Act, according to the New Zealand Commerce Commission."
As long as you don't sell things and claim they cost less than they actually do, there shouldn't be a problem.
The internet is a mature medium. The restaurant was warned about it, and they failed to do anything. It's an open and shut case of false advertising. Would you tolerate your brokerage firm listing out of date brokerage fees? Or your bank listing out of date interest rates?
E = m c^3 Don't drink and derive E = m c^3
I'd take exception to this if it were just a matter of the owner once having a website done up and then forgot about it. But the restaurant was warned not only by the customer who complained but also by the restaurant assocation. Even after all that, nothing was done. So it's clearly false advertising.
And, once again, this has *nothing* to do with my rights online. How's that Legal section coming along, Taco?
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This goes back to the days of "Bait and Switch" advertising in newspapers back in the 70's. Certainly, if the restaurant posted prices, then they do have a legitimate responsibility to keep that sort of "Time Sensitive" information up to date.
"The complaining customer had notified both the restaurant and the Restaurant Association of New Zealand that the website menu was out of date and misleading, but the operator, despite knowing about the issue, had done nothing to correct the website."
This sends a good message to commercial web site operators and e-commerce sites that they have to maintain current and correct information and can't just say "We didn't have time to update things.....so not our problem"
I don't think I need to worry about my blog I set up one weekend a couple months ago and haven't touched since......do I ???"We will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. " Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Amen!
If you advertise rates and don't meet them, you're wrong. I can understand "forgetting" to update your site, but once someone told you about it and it still goes uncorrected? There has to be some responsibility on the part of the advertisor (regardless of the medium) to make things right. Internet ads still account for billions of dollars world wide, and this is no different than a regular print or TV ad.
There have to be warnings in place prior to sanctions - Again, there is always the possibility of an oversight, especially in the case of a company that doesn't use the web as their primary advertising method, but once notified, fix it for Gods sake!
I was ready to come down hard here, but after I RTFA, I don't have a problem with this.
False advertising on the Internet is still false advertising, no new laws are needed, it is illegal in any medium. In general things illegal in one medium are illegal in all, unless the law specifies otherwise.
This isn't a rights or "Internet" or online case primarily, it is a case of false representations that happened to be on the Internet. Not fundamentally different than if it had been in a newspaper or radio ad, or a billboard, etc.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Once you start a website, should you be legally obligated to keep it up to date? What if it's a personal website that gives obsolte directions on how to get somewhere? This seems like a really hasty and simplistic decision by people who haven't thought the situation through.
Imagine if your bank advertised no charges on all bank accounts on their website, so you sign up for several accounts and all your friends an family do too. At the end of the month, you get your statements and find that you've been charged a lot in bank charges. So you notify the bank about it and also let the local banking assocation know. The banking assocation also notifies the bank about it but still the bank does nothing to correct the obvious error, such as having the page removed or shutting down the site.
Do you think it's wrong to fine the bank in that situation?
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Well then, why don't we start calling police officers "lawyers", and military aircraft pilots "commandoes".
The word Engineer means something. It denotes a level of legal and professional obligation to one's work that does not necessarily exist in other careers. When an individual software developer becomes personally legally responsible for the performance of his company's product, then he can call himself an engineer.
That kind of legal liability don't sound fun? Well then, don't be champing at the bit to get to call yourself "engineer". Its not a snobbery thing, its a safety thing: a person knows that, if they hire an engineer to do something, then they're legally required to stand behind their work. As such, certain jobs require an Engineer, not an "engineer" - this is much like how a person can have a doctorate in biology and extensive medical knowledge, but can't practice legally as a medical doctor. Its for safety reasons - he might be every bit the doctor as the real, certified person, but he has not sworn to the hippocratic oath, he does not have malpractice insurance set up, and various other considerations of accountability may not exist. Also, the state did not keep as close an eye on his medical training. Engineering programs are inspected.
The whole Engineer licensing thing didn't start because of a bunch of engineers wanting to stroke their egos. It started because of a series of catastrophes where nobody was accountable.
So, if you are not designing safety-critical systems, there's no reason to want to call yourself an engineer, unless you just like the fancy word. It is not just a fancy word - abusing it is just like people who use the word "literally" for emphasis.
It doesn't matter how 'stupid' or 'naive' the customers are. False advertising is false advertising. It amuses me how some people here think that otherwise illegal activities are suddenly fine if they're done using a computer.
If as a business owner you don't like it, then the real solution, rather than to bitch and moan about those evil trade laws, is to advertise real information rather than false information. I mean, I can't think that any business anywhere has any excuse for knowingly advertising false information.
Alternatively you can just point out that free markets tend to work best when the parties involved in a transaction have as information as possible. Introducing false information distorts transactions and harms the efficiency of the free market. Requiring truth in avertising is helping the maximise the efficiency of the market.
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
(Say) I own a restaurant. I've been in restaurant business for 28 years, but just recently this young man approached me about a "web-site" thing. I don't know diddly-squat about computers and such, but it's cheap. I pay him $500 and sets up a web-site for me. All is wonderful...
Later, I get notice that my web-site thing is "wrong" but I can no longer reach the guy that made it? What do I do??????
[I in fact know people who have web sites set up for their business by short-lived companies. The web sites often live on, longer than their creators. The "owners" who paid to have them created may not know HOW to change them.]
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"Alternatively you can just point out that free markets tend to work best when the parties involved in a transaction have as information as possible"
Not just tend, but information is necessary for the existence of a free market. Indeed one of the most valid criticisms of free market microeconomics (well even macro actually) is the assumption about perfect information. Without it, the market cannot be free.
"The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging."