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Telco Company Claims Freedom of Speech Includes Misleading Ads
An anonymous reader writes "Rogers Telecommunications is claiming that a ruling by Canada's Competition Bureau violates Rogers' freedom of speech. The company is in court over a 2010 ad campaign where it claimed that its discount brand 'Chatr' was more reliable and suffered fewer dropped calls than the competition. The Competition Bureau found 'no discernible difference in dropped-call rates between Rogers/Chatr and new entrants' and began legal proceedings against Rogers for violating Canada's Competition Act. The Bureau is seeking a $10 million (CDN) fine, an end to the ad campaign, and for Rogers to issue a corrective notice."
I realize Rogers is a Canadian company, so the parallels aren't quite right, but how do the Americans feel this would have played out in the States given Citizens United?
If they win, the Canadian government should sue them for fraud and put they're lying asses out of business.
You can say anything you want. Just have the balls to suffer the consequences. That's why I don't post unpopular opinions anonymously.
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
I thought the founding of Chatr, the 2nd subsidiary of Rogers, located only in major metropolises where Wind Mobile & Mobilicity operated was an anti-competitive "crime".
They'd had years of operation prior in which they could've set up such a company, or better yet offered better prices, but no - wait until there's some real competition then try to steal their potential customers (I say steal because they noticeably did not use the Rogers name as so many people are / were disgusted with them and looking for someone else to do business with).
Anyway, fuck Rogers, as soon as 35.5 months of my 36 month contract were up, I ported to Wind (Rogers tried to charge me early termination even though I was paying for that 36th month - I refused to pay).
Now I get unlimited North America wide talk, unlimited global SMS, voice mail, call display, conference calling, and unlimited internet (throttled after 5 Gb/m) with tethering ... for $40/m. Yeah, fuck you Rogers. (And no, I have no affiliation with Wind other than customer.)
... fried chicken and french fries are now health food and the Pill can prevent STDs.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Greetings and Salutations;
I have to point out that "freedom of speech" is not absolute. It does not absolve the speaker from having to take responsibility for their words, nor, is it license to lie without consequences. This has been ruled upon a number of times by the Supreme Court here in the US. I have to say that this is one area where I agree with the Justices (although there are plenty of other areas where we disagree). The way that truth in advertising has become as rare as an Emu these days is a terrible thing and should not be tolerated. If your marketing people are so incompetent that lying about one's competition is the only way they can find a way to show that your company is a better choice, either you need to hire better people, or, admit that they have a point, and, shut down your company, since it obviously is worthless.
Pleasant dreams.
Dave Mundt
YAB - http://blog.beemandave.com/
"Telco" means TELephone COmpany, so the headline starts, "Telephone Company Company...". At least the summary doesn't mention "ATM machines" or "PIN numbers". Is it just me, or has the quality of writing on /. fallen off a cliff lately?
You mean like Obama and his lies about the cancer victim?
Yes, it's like that folks.
"The ad features Joe Soptic, who lost his job and his health benefits after Romney's Bain Capital closed the GST Steel plant in Kansas City, Mo., in 2001. Soptic later told CNN that his wife had health insurance through her own employer from that point to 2002 or 2003, when she left that job because of an injury—a detail that undermines the ad's heartbreaking narrative.
"I don't know the facts about when Mr. Soptic's wife got sick, or the facts about his health insurance," deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter told CNN on Wednesday."
Amazingly the Democratic lapdogs and sock puppets CNN reported on this?
Face it leftists, your Marxist "professor" is done.
(Posting AC because I'm at work and I don't log into websites from work...)
Dear Rogers, Canada doesn't have Freedom of Speech. That's an American thing (one of the things that I think America got right where Canada got wrong). Using "freedom of speech" as your defence for lying shows you're not only liars, but you're stupid too. Enjoy your $10 million fine.
in that a person can lie, and this is protected speech
so maybe we need to more forcefully commit to the notion that a corporation is NOT a person and does NOT deserve the same protections
in the USA, anonymous trolls lying and making shit up is analogous to corporations and rich people committing secret soft money to untraceable political actions. when will we have our first scandal where Chinese money tinkers with American politics in this way? so why exactly is it allowed that rich people and corporations can influence our politics anonymously, without have to disclose the sources and expenditures?
secret corporate cash is the greatest threat to the health of our democracies
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This has zero to do with Citizens United, and you're right: not only are the parallels not "quite right": they're utterly wrong.
That said, the concept of "corporate personhood" in the US isn't a new construct, and didn't start with Citizens United. US case law has treated corporations as "persons" for purposes of suing and being sued since the 1800s. Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 17 U.S. 518 (1819) recognized corporations as having the same rights as natural persons to contract and to enforce contracts.
Given the principles of free speech, I am curious, though:
How would you propose certain speech be defined as "political" or supporting a candidate or campaign?
Can a business buy 30 seconds of dead air on television?
How about a person reading the introductory paragraphs of Moby Dick?
What about an ad promoting privatized healthcare?
An ad saying, "Tell [insert elected official here] you disagree with X?
Would there be some kind of a board of arbiters which decides what and what doesn't constitute political speech? What speech would "win"? Only that which someone personally agrees with? Free speech is free speech — warts and all.
Not surprised that an article about Canadian law and a Canadian corporation immediately turned to something as unrelated as Citizens United corporate personhood in the US
i THINK tHE nEW CoRPoRatION OuGHT TO BE A fUzzY kITTEH
kIttEh hAs Always Been A bIg PArt Of tHE CorPoRATIon,
lOOK AT All thAT fUr In bETwEen ThE kEyS
tHEN iF yOu pOSt YoUR LieS
bLAMe it On KItteH
"Turns out Soptic’s wife still had her own insurance after he lost his job. She stopped working as a result of an accident:"
Is there a hospital in the United States that turns away a patient. No, it is against the law. So we have on the surface one Pinocchio; the second Pinocchio is they did not lose their insurance due to the plant closing, she still had hers. The third Pinocchio is the time frame of Mitt leaving the company seven years before her cancer was diagnosed. The fourth Pinocchio is no disclosure that the union was responsible for the plant closing. They were asked to take cut-backs in benefits and pensions and refused that made the company costs too heavy to carry and would extend their loses. The fifth Pinocchio may be legal, Burton was a spokesman for Obama until a short time ago. the campaign cannot coordinate with the PAC but, only a short time ago (weeks) I saw Burton on TV acting as a surrogate speaker as has Gibbs. If there is daylight between Burton, Gibbs Axelgrease and Obama it is as thin as Obama's resume.
These spurious attacks are obvious to the point of being slanderous, of what value is winning an election if you can't lead? So the biggest Pinocchio of all is the Obama declaration that he is president of all of Americans. How long can the media keep kissing Obama's butt and be perceived as having value?
Hmmm, if Rogers could rebrand themselves in such a way at to make their ads attacks on those evil white European males, they could get away with saying anything.
Anyone complains they could take it to the Human Rights Commission.
They don't have any freedom of speech rights specified in their constitution. Only the Americans have that. Everybody else's all say, "Void where prohibited by law".
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
In most countries, including the US and Canada, the freedom of speech is declared by law and convention as a right possessed by "man", "every citizen" or "the people". There is no mention of corporations.
There is a difference between fraud (lies used to gain a sale) and free speech. Whether this specific instance counts as fraud is questionable (every business is going to say their product is the "best" and every consumer knows, or should know that).
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
There's only one reasonable and measured response to this. Isn't there?
Vote for me and I'll do this ... ...
My opponent is bad because
1. Allow free speech in advertising claims. (as above)
2. Every claim is understood to have an implicit footnote "This is probably a lie"*
3. Profit**
* except for those that claim to be a lie, which are only there to annoy logicians
** This is probably a lie
-- open source? sounds like the real book --
why wouldn't it? holy crap. the sensationalism in that title.. the obvious political slant coloured with righteous indignation. it makes me feel en garde, as if I'm being trolled, and sometimes I may be, but really I'm not, because it seems most people actually think the way the headline implies. people want the government to take control of everything. 10 trillion new laws a month, or get out of Washington. you're not doing your job!
holy god, man. it's like I like in bizarro-land. it really, truly is. is everyone insane?
It's a second-class joke of a country.
Freedom of speech != Freedom from consequences.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
And exactly what country do you live in that's so much better?
Every other country is just as much a joke if not more.
Especially so if you live in America, that country is the biggest joke of them all.
While I can accept that freedom of speech includes the freedom to lie, it includes the duty to accept the consequences of lying.
So I would say that anybody who made a purchase based on a premeditated lie should be able to request not only a refund of anything paid but punitive damages. It should refund all customers who bought the lied about product, say, three times the amount they paid plus allowance for disruption and time wasted.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
At this point, this company is incapable of any real competition. It's pretty much a given, that any service they offer will be inefficient, unreliable and overpriced.
This is a company that uses Amdocs to do their billing. I actually worked in this little hell-hole for a while last year and got the opportunity to see first hand the "cutting edge technology" a-la Rogers: ridiculously archaic and notoriously unreliable.
I'm not clear on Canadian law. But in the US, "free speech" has traditionally meant the freedom to speak the truth, with courts giving the benefit of doubt to the speaker in determining truthfulness. Thus, one can always say "I think that $PERSON is an $INSULT" since you are merely expression your opinion, and nobody knows your opinion better than you. But "free speech" does not extend to lying when the lies cause harm to others. Hence, free speech does not permit one to "yell 'fire' in a crowded theater" resulting in injury to patrons in the mad rush to the exits. Except, if the theater really is on fire, then yelling "fire" is protected by free speech.
The questions in this case seem to be: (1) Did Rogers make false statements. (2) Did Rogers know that there statements were false (or should they known they were false.) (3) Did the false statements cause harm. If the answer to all three is "Yes" then free speech does not apply in this case.
This concept goes back to the 9th commandment: "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor."
Whether Rogers is a single individual or a group of individuals acting together does not matter.
Not Speech!! Like everyone pointed out, that's an American thing. Canada's charter of rights has "Freedom of Expression".
Now, Rogers is still bonkers and this should not apply to a corporation.
Come on Editors, at least read the first paragraph of the linked CBC article.
Wearing pants should always be optional.
FOX News had won the 'right' to knowingly lie in news broadcasts. The court case involved reporters who were told to lie about rBGH hormone in the production of milk; when they refused to lie on Monsanto's behalf, they were fired.
http://foxnewsboycott.com/resources/fox-can-lie-lawsuit/
Rogers and Bell are the Evil Duopoly in Canada. I'm not surprised Rogers is fighting for the right to lie to potential customers.
When Canada authorized the new carriers, the regulator put in a rule that said the incumbents (Rogers and others) had to provide roaming services for the new carriers at a reasonable charge.
If you're with one of the new guys and you have a call in progress when moving from your carrier's coverage area to Rogers, Rogers has the choice of continuing the live call, or killing it. If they kill it, you have to initiate a new call.
According to one report I saw when this whole mess started, Rogers chose the kill option. They may have used this is the basis for their "fewer dropped calls" claim.
In effect they say "we want to lie and deceive to make a buck".
...for AdBlock
They are absolutely right. Free speech rights should allow them to tell any lies, misleading stories, and so on. On the other hand, consumer protection requires them to follow their free-speech-right guaranteed lies by factually correct statements.
Like: The cheque is in the post. No, it isn't, and you would be stupid if you believe it. Our network is the best in the country. No, it isn't. Our own numbers prove that it is the worst.
It's like a sauna in here.
No mas pantaloons.
It's FRAUD, not protected speech.
Plain and simple.
(Captcha: Crotch) Where I would kick Rogers if the corporation was a person.
Free speech is absolutely necessary in a democracy. Free speech is the last refuge of soundrels.
I love freedom of speech. I like opinions. But, when you say this car will go 100 mph and consume only 32 mpg, then, that car better go 100 mph and only consume 32 mpg. Retorting with, we threw it off a cliff and it got more than 32 mpg as it fell, isn't going to cut it, even though, it is technically true. So, in my deepest sense of respect for the 1st, (I'm in the US), I say, Burn Em.
Let them say, we like this more than any other provider. Notice, the we is them, and if they like it, trivially is true. Let them say, or service is awesome, which, is such a vague opinion, that is can't be false, unless they have absolutely no advantage on _any_ front and no customers.
...or does this not seem like the perfect opportunity for the competition to hoist Rogers by their own petard? I mean really - free speech? Then what's to stop me from telling the world about how Rogers phones emit a high powered form of ionizing radiation that causes impotence in males? That Rogers internet service will infect your computer with malware. That Alan Horn (Chairman) is an accused paedophile and that Nadir Mohammed (CEO) is terrorist?
I mean it's all free speech right?
If Rogers were exercising their right to freedom of speech, surely their customers were exercising the same right when they agreed to pay their bills. That's how it works, isn't it?
Just as it does give you the right to scream fire in a crowded theater, when there is no fire, freedom of speech does not give you the right to commit fraud.
The statement isn't unrealistic or unbelievable and seems quite objective, indicating it's most likely not puffery. If they knew it was false, it may be defamatory, and I hope they get pwned so hard.
Canada doesn't have "Freedom of Speech" protection, it has what's known as "Freedom of Expression" (Wikipedia Article / Scroll to Secton 2b for an explanation) which is not the same as "Freedom of Speech" in the american sense.
We have some limitations on what it covers & what can be restricted. Please don't confuse the two.
Oh look, let's lynch Rogers for maybe, possibly violating Canada Competition Act with some dubious advertisement claims, while enforcing and protecting government-sponsored, for-profit monopolies in the face of automotive insurance corporations like ICBC. Oh, Cana-duh.