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In Australia, Apple Fined $2.5 Million For '4G' Advertising Claims
Whiney Mac Fanboy writes "Apple has agreed to pay a $2.25 million (AUD) fine (along with 300k legal costs) to the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission for misleading advertising. Apple misrepresented their iPad product as being a '4G' device, when in fact they're only compatible with a very small percentage of 4G networks around the world. The Age online has the full story."
10 minutes of iPad sales?
...and the resulting exposure probably saved them tens of millions in advertising.
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Here is the cite from "The Australian". http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/judge-wants-data-on-wealth-before-he-rules-on-apple/story-e6frgakx-1226389535095
Funny how these markets and lawyers and politicians always leave-out relevant facts. "Alan Archibald, QC, acting for Apple, told the court it was irrelevant how many iPads had been sold or returned because Apple had offered to provide full refunds, so there was no loss to customers. "What conceiveable damage might there be?", he said."
The guy forgets that Apple only offered these refunds AFTER the government started prosecuting them. That alone is reason enough to fine them, because had the government not existed, then Apple would have happily lied with its "iPhone 4G" campaign and refused to refund the cash to the ripped-off Australians. (Also refunding the phone doesn't mean customers are exempt from the 2-3 year contracts. Now they are phoneless, but still stuck with a bill.)
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
"This piece of plastic wont work on our networks?"
I doubt it's the kind of advertising they either wanted or needed frankly. That being said it is their own fault and they deserve every lick the ACCC feels like giving them, certainly very few/if any people in the Australian community are supporting them in this, even the most rabid applebois that I know were saying that Apple was pretty stupid with their actions. That they are trying to block the galaxy s3 here also hasn't made them very many friends either.
There are zero 4G towers in any countries, including the U.S. The best we have are technically 3.5 G, as no service yet meets the 4G standard.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
Australia has 4G; quite an extensive LTE network in fact and one that can be used with most new Android phones, it's just that we don't yet use the frequencies that only the USA uses and that Apple solely targeted. Europe is in the same boat, they have 4G but don't use the USA frequencies.
Apple clearly said "* You can have 4G if you are in America" however the * statements that would be allowed in America are not allowed here. Disclaimers in Australia cannot, under law, substantially change the headline of an advertisement. That is, you can't say 4G Capable in the headline then disclaim it as "Only in America" in the Australian market.
I'm surprised Apple didn't use an LTE chip with a larger number of bands. Restricting it to AT&T frequencies seems counter-productive.
No, it's a rational observation that a fine must be meaningful to a corporation for it to have any hope of affecting change.
If the fine is too small (as fines generally are), it is dismissed as a simple cost of business. The immediate problem is remedied (so as not to piss off the authoritative body that caught them), but similar problems are guaranteed to arise again in the future. After all, if it wasn't profitable to break the law in the first place, the company wouldn't have done it. If the fine is going to be a small fraction of that profit each time, the smart business decision is to continue the practice of doing something which breaks the law, preparing for the inevitable "whoops - we'll fix that, your honor" for when someone catches on, and milking the ill-gotten profits until then.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
We have 4G LTE, they sell and advertise the product as 4G but it will never run on a 4G network in this country.
As far as it being a slap on the wrist, the judge seems to agree and has suggested that numbers need to be provided so that he can make the fine meaningful for apple.
BTW Consumer protection laws, don't you guys try to stop snake oil salespeople on your side of the ditch, or do you prefer to just let them roll with it?
In Australia we don't take to kindly to snake oil salesmen, it is why we have institutions like the ACCC.
Next we will be coming for their profits that they are shuffling off overseas to avoid taxation, the public discontent is growing with both Google and Apple about this, and the more they mess around and make themselves targets with things like this and trying to get injunctions against the galaxy S3, the closer they come to turning the public against them.
Australia is not like the USA in regards to loving/respecting companies ripping off the system.
This is a consumer protection organisation. They don't give a fuck about your pedantic nitpicking. Australia has 4G* LTE networks. The iPad was advertised as supporting 4G* LTE networks. The iPad did not support Australia's 4G* LTE networks. Ergo, the iPad did not support 4G* LTE networks. End of story. The CONSUMER protection organisation should not have to give a fuck about whether it supports 4G* LTE somewhere else, the question is, could the advertising be expected to give a consumer a reasonable belief that it would work with their 4G* LTE service. The answer is yes, so Apple broke the law. That you believe this is somehow OK for Apple to market in such a misleading way is telling of how little your government protects your consumers, and how brainwashed your consumers are by your corporations.
* Whether LTE is actually 4G is not addressed by this post, and is beside this point for the purposes of this discussion.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
Actually you have it backwards. There is a 4G standard definition for the rest of the world, then there is the US/Canada. Australia is not the odd one out here.
He probably does know. But he can't make a judgement based on what he "knows", only on the evidence that's been placed before him during the case. That's how the law works.
You cannot pay fines with "market cap". It's not actual money.