Advertising

The Federal Communications Commission voted recently to implement consumer broadband labels. The pricing information alone must be giving shivers to the marketing folks at the biggest broadband providers. The requirement that I think will be the most controversial is the requirement to disclose the typical broadband speed and latency. Some providers will have a real dilemma with the speed disclosure. Some of the dilemmas include the following:

Elon Musk’s aerospace business SpaceX has ordered one of the larger advertising packages available from Twitter, the social media business he just acquired in a $44 billion deal and where he is now serving as CEO.

More than 40 civil-society groups called on Twitter’s top-20 advertisers to inform Elon Musk that they will suspend all advertising on the platform if he follows through on plans to undermine the social network’s community standards and content moderation.

The National Advertising Division (NAD) of Better Business Bureau National Programs has upheld some claims made by Cox in television and radio advertising for its Gigablast internet service but has advised Cox to make changes to the advertisements. BBB National Programs is a non-profit organization that resolves disputes between advertisers. The decision came in response to a challenge from AT&T. In the ads, Cox states that it has gigabit available everywhere – a claim that NAD said is true throughout areas where the advertising has run.

The availability of faster Comcast uploads has a catch—users can only get the higher upstream speeds by purchasing xFi Complete, which adds $25 to monthly broadband costs. According to the company, "As markets launch, Xfinity Internet customers who subscribe to xFi Complete will have their upload speeds increased between 5 and 10 times faster." Additionally, Comcast is deploying the speed upgrade in the Northeast US over the next couple of months. Plans with 10Mbps upload speeds will get up to 100Mbps upload speeds once the new tiers roll out in your region—if you pay for xFi Complete.

Comcast recently launched a TV ad and erected a dedicated website that takes aim at the capabilities and features of T-Mobile's 5G-powered home broadband service, charging that they come up short when compared to what's delivered via Comcast's wired broadband services. In what's expected to be the first in a series of ads either targeting T-Mobile's service or perhaps the broader fixed wireless access (FWA) sector, Comcast's tongue-in-cheek "Vampires" ad features a family of four in a therapist's office lamenting the performance of T-Mobile's offering.

The first-in-the-nation digital advertising tax in Maryland is no more after less than two years in practice. The tax was struck down in the Anne Arundel County Circuit Court after Judge Alison Asti sided with subsidiaries of Comcast and Verizon, finding that the policy violated the First Amendment, the Internet Tax Freedom Act, and the Dormant Commerce Clause. By only taxing advertising when it is served digitally, the tax discriminated against e-commerce and violated the federal Internet Tax Freedom Act, Judge Asti said. He also ruled the tax violated the Dormant Commerce Clause—which pro

Facebook corporate parent Meta has reached a tentative settlement in a lawsuit alleging the world’s largest social network service allowed millions of its users’ personal information to be fed to Cambridge Analytica, a firm that supported Donald Trump’s victorious presidential campaign in 2016. Terms of the settlement weren’t disclosed in court documents filed Aug 26. The filing in San Francisco federal court requested a 60-day stay of the action while lawyers finalize the settlement. That timeline suggested further details could be disclosed by late October.

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.