Talk:False advertising

Discussion

methinks Branding should not be considered as a part of false advertising. When a company (say, Unilever) brands a shampoo with one of its own big brands, it is certifying a certain minimum quality expectation from that shampoo. If a customer is not satisfied (or in the worst case, say she becomes bald), it is Unilever that the customer will sue, and not some unknown manufacturer. This way of doing business is called outsourcing, and it is common all over the world. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.95.149.82 (talk • contribs) 06:26, 31 August 2006

yes branding is not a part of false advertising but this is unethical because many new companies use unverifiable claims in a language that is ammbiguous e.g., ovomait, energee etc. creating erroneous immpressions —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.246.25.168 (talk • contribs) 05:13, 26 October 2006

methinks someone hates on Apple a bit too much in the last two paragraphs of the entry. Can anyone support this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.32.141.184 (talk • contribs) 17:02, 20 October 2006

The section on "misleading analogy" is very poorly written and is clearly biased. Perhaps a more general definition of "misleading analogy" with Apple as a brief example (if at all) would be more appropriate. Also, is there research that proves Apple's claims are false? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.23.57.19 (talk • contribs) 13:27, 26 October 2006

I tried a complete rewrite of the "misleading analogies" section, but it could still use a few more examples and a lot of work. I would suggest avoiding any kind of specifics about the actual functionality of Windows vs. Mac, since the article should probably focus more on the technique itself than a (rather controversial) example of it. 71.57.145.167 19:48, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I'd suggest an entry on "Lost leader" sales, in which an item is advertised at a great discount but either not stocked or only a few of that item are specially brought in for the "sale" and sell out immediately. The customer is then guided to purchase a substantially more expensive product. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.127.128.161 (talk) 00:32, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

What about the rest of the world?

While what is there is useful, it would be enriched a lot by discussion of regulations covering false advertising in the rest of the world (especially the English-speaking parts). There is some mentioning of UK law for example (which I believe is mostly tougher than US law in this area) but insufficient for comparison, and there is no mention at all of the relevant situation in Canadia, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, etc. Without this, it is hard to understand the difference in attitudes in this area in different countries. 130.88.195.186 13:21, 4 April 2007 (UTC) Yeah, ummmmmmm what!?!?!? What is this some kind of little kid writing this stuff? I mean come on people we are all educated adults here. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that we each may just be able to achieve independant thought by ourselves. A great mind once said, "Turn around every now and then I get a little bit lonely and your never coming round" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.136.132.42 (talk) 02:01, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Misrepresentations

To someone who is not in a computer-related field, the entire second paragraph may as well be in a different langaugage (storage? HDD?). Furthermore, nothing is linked. It may be a good analogy (or not), but it should certainly be cleaned-up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.37.120.99 (talk) 19:05, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Looks fine to me. Maybe it's been changed? 69.86.56.126 (talk) 02:52, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

what about everything else?

When a false claim is made about the product, like hair growth or wrinkle removal, implied in advertising? 69.86.56.126 (talk) 02:53, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

problematic writing

the first section is such extended legalese that it is of little use to the casual reader. I'm sure lawyers have other sources... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.86.56.126 (talk) 02:55, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Introductory Offer

The section about "Introductory Offers" mentions the FTC, but doesn't seem to be talking about the kind of "Introductory Offer" referred to in FTC regulations at 16 C.F.R. 502.101 (which seems to be about special offers for new products that are being launched). That regulation also limits the use of the term "Introductory Offer". So, someone needs to cite what they're talking about. rakslice (talk) 23:06, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Scare Tactics

This section is one sided and only mentions tactics of American Politics. Scare tactics are usually used in politics around the world as well as on both sides of the debate. It seems bias and should be made neutral or deleted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.228.52.2 (talk) 21:59, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Free CD (Pay for shipping)

Can someone add when an e-mail reads get something for free, but nowhere on the email does it state that there is an inflated shipping price on the item, then a user gets brought into a shipping and payment page to pay for the S&H?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gesellman (talk • contribs) 00:07, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Lack of neutrality

I haven't read one single sentence in this article that I did not write myself that did not seem like it was intended to make the merchants look like big, bad, money-craving lunatics who are only out to get rich. Isn't Wikipedia supposed to be neutral in its content? For examples on how to make this article more neutral, see my "In the merchants' defense" sentence in the buy x, get y free section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikieditor1988 (talk • contribs) 00:53, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Article's about marketing, not merchants, and it should be 10 times bigger. Marketing is nothing but misdirection, lying, deception, whitewashing, greenwashing, and any other word you can imagine which feeds greed.72.201.19.165 (talk) 10:23, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

S&H scam is everywhere

The FTC should regulate S&H fees, in particular that they must be the actual cost, and that sales tax on S&H may not be evaded.--Ms dos mode (talk) 03:35, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

References????

My gosh, this article is almost completely void of verifiable references. It hurts my eyes looking at this article with all the extraneous claims with no source. It a superb subject, but the body is very, very, very weak. Why is all this content allowed to stay? NoFlyingCars (talk) 09:42, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

About 30% of Wiki psychology articles have zero citations. So your point applies to many many articles. But there would be a big hole if all uncited Wiki text was deleted. --Penbat (talk) 14:12, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps a hole, but better than, in this case, naming companies for alleged bad practices without any verification. I'm going to be rectifying the unreferencedness and original researchness of this later when I get home, and it's going to be by a large removal of unsourced content. SchuminWeb (Talk) 12:46, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

And the article has been cleared of all unreferenced passages and original research. SchuminWeb (Talk) 17:28, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

There is, of course, a possible middle ground between "keep all unreferenced material including libel" and "delete all unreferenced material". I suppose it's still in the history if anyone can make the time to go through and search out sources, though. --McGeddon (talk) 09:57, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

True enough. But it's a lot and needs an editor with a handy amount of time. I'll try to check in every now and then and reinsert 'clean' material or look for sources but my editing these days is more of the pop-in and pop-out nature (and will be so till the end of this year). --RegentsPark (talk) 15:05, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Unsourced material

As you can see in the References??? section above, there is a consensus that the unsourced material in this article should be removed. False advertising is a technical and legal label applied to certain advertisements and the 'common knowledge' rule does not apply here. Generally, if an advertisement has been deemed false or deceptive, surely as source can be found. In the meantime, labeling a practice of Bell South as false without satisfying the verifiability requirement that (a) Bell South actually did what is described in the article and (b) that has been called false or deceptive by a reliable source, is patently the wrong way for wikipedia to do its good stuff. It is useful to remember that verifiability is a policy on wikipedia and reinstating unsourced text which several editors have deleted is probably not the best of ideas. --RegentsPark (talk) 02:31, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Chocolate

Fake chocolate (without cocoa butter) is often labelled as "chocolate candy" or "chocolatey". 142.167.166.222 (talk) 22:56, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

One of the "newest" ways to false advertise, is when you have a future product...

Not really, but Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile are doing it with this "4G" standard, which is only applicable to future versions of Sprint and Verizon's networks: Source 24.240.67.69 (talk) 05:19, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Not really false advertising?: Other Deceptive Methods --> Incomplete Labeling

I don't see why this is included in this article. Anyone want to support it? It's currently unreferenced. If Wal-Mart insinuated that their products were made one place or another, maybe. But they don't, and haven't for a very long time. I'm going to take it out if no one has anything to say for it. --Drkslvr (talk) 20:35, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

California Advertising section

The section on California false advertising laws was created by my student as part of the Wikipedia Public Policy Initiative. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_United_States_Public_Policy/Courses/Advertising_and_Marketing_Law_spring_2011_(Goldman) Ericgoldman (talk) 20:57, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

hard drive measurment misdrepresentation

this section is incorrect in some ways it is true that a 1000 gig hard drive is not reported by the OS as being the amount of avaliable data but this is more to do with the fact that the software measures by 1024 abnd has done for many years while the hard drive manufacturarers measure the capacity of their products by the avalible space and then dividing by a factor of ten which they have also been done for many years. Neither side really is interested in dropping their prefered system and depending on what sources you look at there is arguments on both sides for their standard which has left us with the current status quo. THerefore i propose a comprehensive rewrite or straight up delete as this is less a case of false advertising but more of a case of different industy standarrds Digmores (talk) 00:47, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

The court system says you're wrong. Read the lawsuit filed etc. in the relevant case. Perhaps some excerpts should be added to the article.--67.170.192.66 (talk) 18:54, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

The general idea is captured in this section with a few misconceptions. I made some small edits to remove ambiguity of bytes versus bits. 10^6 bytes is still called a megabyte as is 2^20. A byte is 8 bits always by any definition. So a megabit is actually 2^20 / 2^3 = 2^17 bytes. The bits vs bytes shows up in representation of internet connection speed (bandwidth of 10Mb/s = 10MB/s / 8b/B), but not in harddrive capacity. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.112.138.113 (talk) 18:02, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Actually the so called industry standard is "wrong" as the SI standard "megabyte" (MB) is set at base ten, not base two, the unit refering to base two is called mebibyte (MiB) see the NITS reference on SI binary units [1] 212.85.67.43 (talk) 11:36, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Real Examples

We should have some real examples. Here are two: http://www.vladzilla.com/d/10%20Burger%20King%20-%20Whopper%20Jr%201.jpg is a derivative of a copyright work, but the work itself is licensed CC-by-nd (actual license at http://www.alphaila.com/articles/about-2/).

http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/kindle/dp/2012/KS/technical._V389706824_.jpg - Umm, a standard pencil is 0.28" wide, not 0.34" wide. Clearly the Kindle and the pencil are not to scale. They appear to be the same width in the photo, but the Kindle is actually 22% larger than it appears to be.

Certainly fair use in this article, and would comply with policy if properly described. Anyone up for adding 'em?--67.170.192.66 (talk) 18:54, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Section 2.11 and 2.12

These two sections are biased, terribly written and uncited. They may need to be written by someone who can find citations and actually knows how to write and encyclopaedic entry. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.166.150.53 (talk) 07:07, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Manipulation of measurement units and standards

The part about GB and MB in this section is very misleading. Binary prefix page clearly states that no one really knew whether MB was in base two or base ten and the ambiguity existed for almost as long as computers have had some sort of RAM. So using it is the opening example here is more ironic than it is informative.

PinothyJ (talk) 13:49, 1 August 2013 (UTC)…