Really Misleading Ads From Broadband Providers

Bourdain writes "Gizmodo has put together a good compilation of the — seemingly almost criminally — misleading (largely plain wrong) advertising from our favorite local monopolies. My personal favorite is from AT&T which states you need 3mbps to use social networking sites like Facebook."

Comments

Totally misleading

[Kenoli]

My personal favorite is from AT&T which states you need 3mbps to use social networking sites like Facebook

That would be pretty funny if it were true, but no, it doesn't actually say that.
Try writing a real article instead of just completely making shit up.

The little chats even say "good for:" or "ideal for:".
The checkboxes clearly mean "if you want to do these sorts of things you probably want this amount of bandwidth", not "lesser connections are incapable of this".
It doesn't take a genius.

crimnals

[kenshin33]

[...] — seemingly almost criminally — [...]

If not misinterpreting in Canada it is criminal offence. To quote competitionbureau :

The false or misleading representations and deceptive marketing practices provisions of the Competition Act contain a general prohibition against all materially false or misleading representations. They also prohibit making performance representations which are not based on adequate and proper tests, misleading warranties and guarantees, false or misleading ordinary selling price representations, untrue, misleading or unauthorized use of tests and testimonials, bait and switch selling, double ticketing and the sale of a product above its advertised price. Further, the promotional contest provisions prohibit contests that do not disclose required information.

[...]

The Competition Act provides criminal and civil regimes to address false or misleading representations. Under both regimes, the Act prohibits the making, or the permitting of the making, of a representation to the public, in any form whatever, that is false or misleading in a material respect.

Re:Facebook bloat

[Anonymous Coward]

Http://lite.Facebook.com

Re:I love some of their plans

[Jesus_666]

Oral-B is another offender. I don't know about the USA but in Germany they run advertisements that make Star Trek look like Fisher-Price. Seriously. They need a goddamn holodeck just to look at people brushing their teeth and then their massive transhuman knowledge of oral hygiene coalesces into a product called the "Oral-B Triumph". And they market it like they just brought about world peace by manufacturing an electric toothbrush.