Slashdot Mirror
NZ Business Fined For Out-of-Date Website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 By having out-of-date menus and prices on its website, it has breached the Fair Trading Act, according to the New Zealand Commerce Commission."
The fact that it's on the Internet is moot; it's false advertising. Simply that.
As long as you don't sell things and claim they cost less than they actually do, there shouldn't be a problem.
This happened to my dad's small engineering company. He had the phrase "engineers" on the site, when in fact there was a single engineer (PE) and an EIT (engineer in training) who was weeks away from becoming a full-fledged engineer.
I think the state board of licensure fined him something around $50,000? Absolutely rediculous. Granted, the head of the board was the engineer for a competing company I believe, so there might've been other motivations... stupid small states.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
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 Would you tolerate your brokerage firm listing out of date brokerage fees? Or your bank listing out of date interest rates?
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Exactly why is a web site a special case from other forms of promotion and advertising?
Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
In other news, the Staten Island Ferry was fined $30,000 after a customer got in line clutching a rate card from 1958.
Turning to Europe, a German recycling firm was shuttered over the weekend when it was discovered that, in a locked, donated trunk of old books and papers, they had been in posession of WWII-era Nazi propaganda.
And PETA's founder was forced to resign today after it was learned his father once ate a steak. Rare.
Well I looked around the article but couldn't locate any information whether the site was hosted inside of New Zealand or outside, but I would imagine if it was hosted outside of New Zealand that they would have no right to go after the company for what their website contained, since it would not be on their soil.
I hope this does happen in the USA, but only to companies.
A) Too many companies leave false, misleading information.
B) Too many companies still believe a Web site is something you can build and leave alone, or revisit only once a year.
C) It'll keep large companies from hiring part-time Webmasters, and encourage more full time hires to conduct regular Web site updates.
Hmmm... okay, 2 out of 3 wouldn't be bad...
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Slashdot had better watch out too then. It's putrid colour scheme and invalid html code are even more outdated.
Si tacuisses philosophus mansisses. If you had kept quiet, you would have remained a philosopher.
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.
Well, US is not known for the high level of consumer rights. But I do foresee similar cases in some country in the EU where they have reasonably effective consumer protection laws and authorities.
-William
God is everything science has yet to explain.
I think you missed the point.
We are protected here in NZ, from false advertising which may draw us into a store, restaurant etc. expecting low priced goods or special bargains.
The restaurant can host its website wherever it wants, it was still telling New Zealanders that it had specific items on its menu, which it no longer actually serves.
p.s. last time I dined there the staff were rude and incompetent, and they deserve to be straightened out in any way possible.
NZ has a law the Fair Trading Act 1986. Part of it is around consumer protection. Basically the part he has been fined under is a section that states business must advertise prices, product spec etc correctly. It doesn't matter if it was in print or online it's advertising. He was warned about it and did nothing, so he was fined. It's not about Big brother jumping in. He broke a law (that pre-dates common usage of the Internet) and he got caught. A number of companies a year get fined for this sort of action, the only reason this got much of a headline is that it was the 1st web-based advertising to be fined under the Act.
In other news, hordes of dissapointed Slashdotters find that they can't /. the servers because there is no direct link.
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.
This sounds like it has the potential to be a great money spinner for Slashdot users with a litigious streak and zero sympathy for the non-computer/Internet literate.
There are thousands of "mom and pop" businesses out there who paid a webmaster to make them a site as a one-off after being bombarded with the message that their business will go under if they don't join the 21st century and get an Internet presence. Once their contract with the webmaster expires, these sites often sit dormant for years. The owners of these businesses are typically working their asses off on the fundamentals to stay afloat, and it's probable that many barely recall the fact that they have a (rather pointless) Internet presence, let alone know how to update the site, or have the spare cash to hire a webmaster just to update a few details.
So here's what we do. We seek these sites out, send an e-mail to their long since unmonitered account complaining that we were misled because the site's details are not up-to-date, and sue the pants off them when there is no response. And we don't have to feel the least bit bad about our nuisance lawsuits tying up the overburdened court system, because after all, these greedy small businesses maliciously attempted to deceive people, and we're just doing our bit to eliminate this evil from the world.
(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.]
PK: 09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
I went to a local Vancouver camera shop's web site, and looked into pricing for a Sigma SD10. Found that they had a great deal on for the camera body, 2 lenses (wide angle and zoom), case, and really nice flash.
I went down and tried to buy the camera, but was quoted a HUGELY different price for it. I asked the guy to go to their website and tell me what it says, after which the clerk said someone made a mistake on the data input... turns out the price was only for the base, not including the 2 lenses and the flash.
As a result, the clerk called the owner/boss, who asked them if the lower price was actually on the site, and had a detailed description of what was included in that price, and when it was validated, he said "well, give that stuff to him at that price... and CHANGE THE WEBSITE. " The site was changed while I was still in the store paying for my camera.
So, at the end of the day, I saved over $1,500 due to their screwup. I kind of felt bad about it, and ended up buying more stuff than I would have (huge amounts of ram, rechargeable batteries, tripod, etc), but it was nice to see the guy live up to his on-line marketing.
$0.02 (CDN)
In larger markets, WalMart has their in-store pricing match their online pricing because they're undercutting local stores online and b&m. However, in rural areas where there's no Best Buy, CC or whatever to compete with, they charge the regular price in-store. If you ask the customer service people, they refuse to price match their own website advertised prices. You can go online to order it, but you can't get it in the store.
Example: Recently, some new DVD came out that would normally run at least $19.99. Best Buy and others were selling it at $15.99 to bring in customers. Walmart was selling it for $14.88 online and in stores near Best Buy. In Walmarts in the middle of nowhere, the price was the full $19.99. No price matching. I skipped going to Best Buy to pick it up because walmart.com said I could get it at Walmart for $14.88. By the time I was near a Best Buy again, the sale was over.
It's not even a case of old or mistyped pricing. They're actively selling at the price, just not in certain areas where they can get away with jamming up the customer. Most other places that charge less online will at least give you the lower price in the store if you ask.
Nothing annoys me more than all the web sites out there that are out of date. However, if it's clearly out of date then is that really false advertising? Perhaps I just have a sense of what is out of date (well some of these web sites will have shocking 10 year old looking HTML so I'll disregard the information within seconds). Though if the web site owner were place a disclaimer saying "Prices current as of ", I don't see why they'd be liable 2 years later when they've forgotten to update prices. In any case, it probably makes sense for businesses to date any prices they publish, even in fine print. I'm guessing that the web site in question didn't do this.
What really annoys me more though is computer retailers who advertise online prices that are discounted to compensate for postage but when you walk into their store the prices are completely different. Perhaps I ought to tell 'em next time I notice that they're probably breaking fair trading laws and follow it up with the ACCC if they don't honour their prices.
Jeremy
Melbourne, Australia
Jabber Australia
This reminds me of the stories about ridiculous lawsuits (i.e., people suing toaster manufacturers for millions, and winning, because their toaster didn't have a sticker warning them not to use it in the bath), many of which are said to be planted by lobby groups pushing for product-liability laws to be pulled back, making it harder for consumers to sue.
Similarly, I wonder whether the distortion in this story (turning false advertising into outrageous government interference in personal web publishing) has an agenda behind it. Perhaps someone wants to weaken New Zealand's truth-in-advertising laws?
Put an prominent expiration date on all your web sites and you won't have this problem.
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