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Comment by sundvor | Hacker News Reader

Yep, if you use the word unlimited, and that's not what you're actually providing, you're a liar. Pure and simple.

If this is common practice, then these companies are all a bunch of liars.

As opposed to other places in the world, truth in advertising is dead in the US - and also Australia, for that matter.

Try using the word "free" in Norway if you're not prepared to offer that for free with zero strings attached, and see how far you get before feeling the weight of the law. (And "zero strings" here means exactly that in the most literal sense).

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> and also Australia, for that matter.

what? Australia has some of the strongest consumer protection laws - sometimes I actually feel bad for the corporations...

There is a whole strict regulatory system for determining facts vs mere puff.

> There is a whole strict regulatory system for determining facts vs mere puff.

That sounds amazing. We should probably copy that entirely, for the US.

I studied marketing law in Norway as part of marketing science before switching back to tech and then moving down under; Australian marketing law is very very relaxed compared to Norway.

This is changing rapidly the last decade or so, especially in the telecom industry. There's quite a few companies getting into trouble for misleading advertising recently.

Really can you give examples? To give recent general advertising law examples about how strict the standards bureau is, in Australia it’s illegal to show a woman doing most of the housework, or a man being a bad father.

Any ad or promotion that features the word "free".

Edit: actual example, https://coleslittleshop.com.au

They are not free. You have to spend $30 to get one. The word _free_ is perverted.

This would be illegal in Norway: https://www.forbrukertilsynet.no/lov-og-rett/veiledninger-og...

> 5.3 Gratispåstander

> ”Gratis”, ”vederlagsfritt”, ”uten betaling” og lignende uttrykk må ikke benyttes i markedsføringen dersom gratisytelsen er betinget av kjøp av andre ytelser for å oppnå gratisytelsen.

translates more or less directly (using Google translate and then adjusting slightly based on my 15+ years of experience with talking and writing mostly Norwegian) to

5.3 "Free" Claims

"Free", "Free of charge," "Unpaid," and similar terms, may not be used in the promotion if the free good or service is conditional upon purchase of other benefits to achieve the free good or service.

That's pretty spot on; thanks.

Both of which might be overregulation, but neither of which are relevant to the kind of laws being discussed here.

As an Australian, I have no idea how lax or strong the consumer protection laws are. I know they exist, and they are enforced by an identifiable, respected federal agency.

I have no idea whether the laws are good, or whether that agency does a good job in general. In fact, I have very little notion of what I should expect from good laws and enforcement in this field.

This is anti-discrimation law, not customer-protection law.

Sorry they referenced marketing laws generally, consumer protection is covered by a thing called “Australian Consumer Law” and it’s very hostile towards warranties etc.

I know, right??

Some weeks ago there was this article on the HN frontpage (even though it wasn't about tech at all) about a scam that pretended to offer chance to win a car, except it was really a trick to pull people into some crazy completely unrelated money-sucking scheme, and the kicker was that nobody ever won a car, not even the car that was literally on display as being the prize!

And this is apparently legal in the US.

Similarly about the "House of God / 50 dollars or more" TV preachers that promise miracles if you send them money. Taking advantage, mainly of the vulnerable, who believe that, or even just believe they're supporting a proper Christian Church. But it's really just some person telling them to send them money. How the hell is this not regulated?

Is anyone surprised that if you don't have regulations to stop people from scamming others, you can't rely on a vague sense of common decency, because there are enough of them that will exploit it unless you tie their hands and speak out as a society that that sort of shit is simply not acceptable.

> And "zero strings" here means exactly that in the most literal sense

Well, hopefully not in the _most_ literal sense, because Verizon can probably manage to provide you internet service with no actual balls of yarn tied to the router... :)

> Yep, if you use the word unlimited, and that's not what you're actually providing, you're a liar. Pure and simple.

Then by definition nothing is unlimited... The whole universe has limits... there's a finite amount of atoms... even saying you have unlimited access to my comment would be lying because one day, you'll die, or the storage will die, or this comment will be forgotten...

I think if you sell an unlimited 200 Kbps connection, it's implied that it's a 65 GB one. Putting a limit on the bandwidth would be to offer LESS than what the other limits imply.

Saying unlimited 100 mbit/s but throttling it at 1 mbit/s sure, that is clearly false advertising because you actually get unlimited 1 mbit/s.

This is neither helpful nor clever.

If nothing is unlimited, then you should not advertise as such. Not sure why you're even bringing that up except to be pedantic.

Pretty clear statement - unlimited data is either unlimited or not. Throttling customers because they reached the limit on what you're selling as "unlimited" is deceptive at best, and actually harmful at worst. We're seeing the latter here, and still people want to correct the customer on what unlimited means.

Simply put: this marketing tactic is a Bad Thing because it sells people something they didn't want with a sticker that said it was what they wanted.

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