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writes "Apple has been running an iPhone ad saying 'all parts of the internet are on the iPhone', but it had to be withdrawn after Britain's Advertising Standards Authority ruled that it gave 'a misleading impression of the internet capabilities of the iPhone' because the iPhone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

Confusion

[Anonymous Coward]

The ad repeatedly says you can get the whole 'internet', not just the web.

Apple, I want gopher dammit!

Re:Confusion

[EvilNTUser]

You're modded funny, but this IS another valid reason it's false advertising. If they want to decide what runs on the phone, they really can't claim it supports the whole internet. You can't have it both ways.

That comment about whether the government should really decide is very trollish. Supply and demand have in fact decided that many sites require flash*. The government is only enforcing truth in advertising. Not everything they do is automatically wrong, ok?

*no matter how much it may annoy us.

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]

No, the advertisement authority did the right thing here. "The entire internet" is a lofty claim, and Apple isn't living up to it. I don't give a damn if 99% of the population doesn't care about the entire internet, Apple is still responsible for being factual in their claims.

Re:Confusion

[bigstrat2003]

No one lives up to that claim... but then again, they aren't making it. Apple is the one stupid enough to have made the claim, so it only matters if they live up to it.

Re:Confusion

[bigstrat2003]

It could be argued, by this logic, that no device can access 'the entire internet' with the possible exception of Windows based PC's because only a Windows PC will run ActiveX controls (wine hackage not withstanding).

Indeed. Which is why companies shouldn't make stupid, pie-in-the-sky claims like Apple did. That easy.

keyword 'all'

[steveargonman]

When I hear the phrase..

'all parts of the internet are on the iPhone',

I tend to think I can access just about anything. I think expecting java or flash to work isn't asking much yet that's not available so I do think saying 'all' is a little misleading.

I think a simple re-wording would get their point across and yet not be invalid.

What about NNTP? P2P?

[oldspewey]

Knowing nothing about iPhone I have to ask, can it run a newsreader client? p2p client?

Should government authorities ...

[Trigun]

Should government authorities be the ones making that decision?"

Should Apple?

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'.

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".

Bollocks.

[Karellen]

The iPhone can access flash and java content perfectly.

That it can't render it is a different argument entirely. It's particularly specious for proprietary shite like Flash which subverts the whole paradigm of the web being built around open protocols and formats.

Jeez, I suppose my Linux/PPC box can't access "all of the web" because fscking Adobe haven't been gracious enough to release Flash for it yet, and Gnash doesn't work perfectly on all flash "content".[0]

Utter bollocks.

[0] "content" in used here its loosest possible sense, which includes "effectively content-free content".

Re:iphone sucks

[The Great Pretender]

Actually, the government mandate here is protection of the consumer. In the UK the government has the right to request withdrawal and slap the wrist of any advertisement that is considered false or misleading. Do they do it all the time? No. In this instance the question was raised - Does the iPhone have all parts of the internet on it? and the irrefutable answer is no, thus false advertising and that advert needs to be replaced by one that does not make such broad claims. This was nothing to do with the government having any control over the internet.

The better concern should be why pick on Apple when some much other false advertising get through the system...