Iliad’s advertising practices have been subject to recent criticism, and highlight a common problem in the industry
Two misleading advertising practices: Iliad will have to pay a €1.2m fine for two misleading advertising practices in Italy. The competition authority (the AGCM) found that Iliad advertised some mobile offers as compatible with 5G technology, without specifying important conditions for consumers to actually make use of it, such as the need to verify Iliad’s 5G coverage and to have a compatible device. When the offers were launched, the only smartphones compatible with Iliad’s 5G network were those from Huawei, Motorola, Nokia, Oppo, and Xiaomi. The most popular devices (i.e. from Apple and Samsung) were left out even if some of them were on sale on the operators’ website displaying the “5G” tag. Some customers complained that they took up the offer and later found out that their device was incompatible. Iliad also marketed an offer claiming “100 gigabytes, unlimited texts and minutes in Italy and Europe” which the AGCM found to be misleading, since it made consumers believe they had 100GB available across Europe whereas in fact the allowance when roaming was limited to just 6GB.
Iliad’s advertising woes compound: Iliad recently came under criticism for its new fibre offer, which was advertised as having a speed of 5Gbps. Only in the fine print did Iliad specify that it was a theoretical speed that was unattainable over WiFi, where the maximum speed was 500Mbps. A consumer association raised a complaint with the regulator AGCOM, and the self-regulatory body for advertising standards ordered Iliad to stop the advertising following a complaint from Wind Tre. More broadly, we recently noted that consumer bodies in Italy have identified shortcomings in the way operators advertise broadband offers, despite the presence of a labelling scheme which helped consumers find their way through fibre products but is now seen as outdated.
A problem elsewhere in this industry: Operators’ pursuit of effective marketing campaigns can give rise to questionable claims, and is not new with 5G. In the UK, all operators have regularly and successfully lodged complaints with the Advertising Standards Authority, although don’t usually face such large fines. Consumers need transparency from operators, as they cannot always be expected to navigate new technologies and have perfect knowledge of what’s available to them. The work of GigaTAG highlighted that many UK consumers thought they had a full-fibre connection, even in areas where it isn’t yet available. Education can go some way to minimise confusion, but operators need to get their messaging right if they want to maintain the trust of their customers and in the spirit of fairness.
https://www.agcm.it/media/comunicati-stampa/2022/3/PS12029
