By: MarkJ - 6 January, 2012 (7:24 AM) - Score: 2001 - Fixed Line Broadband

Budget Internet and phone provider TalkTalk appears to have mocked the UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) by effectively reintroducing its banned "UK's safest broadband" claim, which the ASA ruled to be "misleading" on Wednesday (detailed here), and instead adjusting it to read "UK's safest broadband connection".

Furthermore TalkTalk suggests that the ASA has given them approval for the change, just so long as the "network level" security part is made clear. An article in IT Pro magazine quotes the ISP as saying, "We’ve never been more delighted with a ruling ... we can now say, beyond dispute, that we are the UK’s safest broadband connection. This probably wasn’t the outcome that BT wanted." Two members of the public also complained.

A spokesman for the ASA has since told PC Pro that it categorically denies giving TalkTalk any such permission, which they suggest is more likely to have come from the ASA administered Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP). The ASA warned that CAP approval would not stop them from taking action against the "new" wording.


The spokesman is said to have admitted that consumers probably wouldn't see the difference between "broadband" and "broadband connection". Meanwhile the ISPs move does an effective job of exposing the ASA's inability to act beyond a basic slap-on-the-wrists approach.

Separately Adam Binks, the commercial director of ISP Vispa UK, informed ISPreview.co.uk that they had, "been offering Network Centric Content Filtered Broadband since 2009 via our WebGuard product - so well done to the ASA for slamming [TalkTalk's] false claims." At the time of writing we couldn't find mention of this on Vispa's site. Details of this can be found under the "Optional Extra's" tab on their broadband and fttc pages.

In an ideal world TalkTalk would first need to produce an independent comparison that could prove their claims.