iPhone Web Claims Draw Governmental Rebuke in UK

Wills writes "Apple has been running an iPhone ad saying 'all parts of the internet are on the iPhone', but it had to be withdrawn after Britain's Advertising Standards Authority ruled that it gave 'a misleading impression of the internet capabilities of the iPhone' because the iPhone cannot access Flash or Java – features that are essential to some websites. This raises an interesting issue of where do you draw the line between essential and non-essential features of websites. What should the web look like? Should government authorities be the ones making that decision?"

Comments

Re:Who misses flash?

[garcia]

Who misses flash?

Those of us that use sites that are built with it. While I don't need it for most mobile browsing, there are some sites where it is required. If the device can play YouTube flash videos, why can't it load the flash sites too?

I will be purchasing an iPhone shortly and know of its shortcomings but to blindly support their decision not to include something that is so very popular on the web is a bit ridiculous IMO.

Governement? Not so much...

[KokorHekkus]

The Advertising Standards Authority is the independent body set up by the advertising industry to police the rules laid down in the advertising codes. The strength of the self-regulatory system lies in both the independence of the ASA and the support and commitment of the advertising industry...

Source:http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/about/

It doesn't raise those issues

[Hektor_Troy]

This raises an interesting issue of where do you draw the line between essential and non-essential features of websites. What should the web look like? Should government authorities be the ones making that decision?

That isn't raised unless you think it's quite alright to claim that a Prius is an "all terrain vehicle" (as long as 'all terrain' doesn't include deep mud, steep unpaved hills and stuff like that).

This isn't about the government making the decision that "this or that is an essential feature of websites", it's about Manufacturer A claiming that Product B can do Feature C when obviously it cannot do Feature C but only a subset of that feature.

Lying to sell your products is not allowed in the UK. It may be in the US or elsewhere in the world, but this is about the UK. And in the UK they have this pesky law about not claiming your product can do things that it cannot do.

It's not 'governmental rebuke'

[Anonymous Coward]

The Advertising Standards Authority is an independent advertising industry body; it is not government funded, and is not a 'government authority'.

Re:Who misses flash?

[jmauro]

It does not play "flash" YouTube videos. YouTube on the iPhone is a custom client app that does not use flash at all. It won't even play all the videos YouTube has to offer only the ones that can be accessed in h264 format so the app can use the iPod video decoding software/hardware to play it with their custom interface (flash only videos will not play at all).

ASA is not a "government authority"

[Candid88]

"Should government authorities be the ones making that decision?""

The Advertising Standards Authority is not a government authority. It was established by the Advertising Association, a trade body representing (from the wiki) "advertisers, agencies, media and support services in the United Kingdom" The ASA's introduction on wikipedia reads:

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is the independent self-regulatory organisation (SRO) of the advertising industry in the United Kingdom. The ASA is a non-statutory organisation and so cannot interpret or enforce legislation. However, its code of advertising practice broadly reflects legislation in many instances. The ASA is not funded by the British Government, but by a levy on the advertising industry

This is how most media watchdogs in the UK are run. Important facts like this should really be checked before making very flawed summaries. For if Apple wanted, they could simply ignore the ASA's ruling. Most carriers would probably refuse to run the adverts, but it's most certainly not a "government decision".

Re:Confusion

[Candid88]

"That comment about whether the government should really decide is very trollish."

Not only that, but it's also completely irrelevant to the story. The Advertising Standards Authority (who deemed the advert misleading) was setup by the advertising industry's trade body and has absolutely nothing to do with the British government.

The ASA ruling is non-legally binding although all major broadcasters and publishers generally adhere to it. The appropriate governmental agencies are Ofcom (office of communication) and OFT (office of fair trading) which have the relevant legal powers. Neither of which were involved here.

Re:Confusion

[bigstrat2003]

And that's what they delivered.

No.

They delivered what the W3C says the Web should be coded to. They delivered email following the POP3 and IMAP standards for email.

Exactly. This is not the entire internet, nor should it be allowed to be advertised as such.

If the W3C/RFP documents that outline HTML, HTTP, HTTPS don't outline what "web and email" are, then nothing does.

Quite true. Nothing does. Like it or not, Flash and Java content is an important part of the Web, and were you to promise to deliver the whole Web (to say nothing of the internet itself, a far loftier claim!), you must deliver them. Period. If a Web site has it as content, you must be able to display it before you can say you deliver the whole Web.

I'm not saying it's unreasonable of Apple to not want to dick around with that, I'm saying they can't claim they're delivering more than they actually are.