Advertising

Meta Platforms signed a $37.5 million class settlement with Facebook users who say the platform continued tracking their locations after they turned off location services on their devices, according to a filing in San Francisco federal court. The settlement by the US District Court for the Northern District of California covered about 70 million US residents who used Facebook between Jan. 30, 2015 and April 18, 2018 and who turned off the location services setting for the Facebook application on their iOS or Android devices.

T-Mobile has been advised to stop implying that a consumer can save up to 50% on their home internet services compared to major competitors like Verizon. The recommendation comes from the National Advertising Division (NAD) of the Better Business Bureau (BBB) National Programs.

AT&T won its latest battle with Charter Communications over marketing claims, with the National Advertising Division (NAD) recommending the latter discontinue advertisements which call into question the reliability of AT&T’s internet service. The ruling followed AT&T’s challenge of a Charter ad for its Spectrum service. The commercial in question claimed Spectrum won against “telephone internet companies” in terms of providing reliable and glitch-free internet service.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is seeking the public’s input on ways to modernize the agency’s business guidance titled “.com Disclosures: How to Make Effective Disclosures in Digital Advertising.” First published in March 2013, this resource provides guidance to businesses on digital advertising and marketing. As digital deception grows in sophistication, some companies are wrongly citing the guides to justify practices that mislead consumers online.

Google Fiber agreed to alter its advertisements after the National Advertising Division (NAD) determined a number of its speed claims were unsupported, including the assertion that its service can provide “faster download speeds than you'd get with traditional cable.” The decision followed a challenge from cable player Charter Communications. In addition to the aforementioned claim, NAD also ruled against Google’s claims that it offers up to 77 times faster uploads and up to 12 times faster downloads.

Sens Mike Lee (R-UT), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) have introduced the Competition and Transparency in Digital Advertising Act. The bill would restore and protect competition in digital advertising by eliminating conflicts of interest that have allowed the leading platforms in the market to manipulate ad auctions and impose monopoly rents on a broad swath of the US economy.

Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina M. Khan announced that an open meeting of the Commission will be held virtually on Thursday, May 19, 2022. The following items will be on the tentative agenda:

The Federal Trade Commission has moved to stop internet service provider Frontier Communications from lying to consumers and charging them for high-speed internet speeds it fails to deliver. Under a proposed order with the FTC and two California law enforcement agencies, Frontier will be prohibited from tricking consumers about its slow internet service and required to support its speed claims.

The Communications Workers of America (CWA) launched a six-figure digital advertising campaign aimed at securing Gigi Sohn’s [Senior Fellow and Public Advocate at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society] confirmation to the Federal Communications Commission.

While homes that get over-the-air (OTA) TV content continue to grow slowly, the greatest change over the last three years has been with broadband-only (BBO) homes—comprising 27% of TV homes in Q4 2021, according to Nielsen. In 2018, the percentage was 9%. This has come largely at the expense of homes with traditional cable TV and other TV services—so-called "Cable Plus." These make up 57% of U.S. homes, down from 76% in the fourth quarter of 2018. The remainder are OTA homes—now estimated at 15%, up from 14% three years earlier.