ASA Slaps ONSPEED - Broadband Claim
Posted: 08th Mar, 2006 By: MarkJ
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has upheld a complaint against ONSPEED; software designed to compress and accelerate older dialup connections. The ASA took exception to it being advertised like a broadband service:
Turbodial said the purchase page on their website stated that all potential customers must read the information regarding ONSPEED's limitations before purchase. That document stated "ONSPEED speeds up your web browsing and sending and receiving of e-mails ... ONSPEED will not accelerate browsing over HTTPS (secure websites), file downloads such as Quicktime files, MP3, AVI, MPEG, exes or streaming media content (over FTP or file sharing programs)".
They sent results of a test they had undertaken that demonstrated that, when ONSPEED was used with a 56K Dial-up connection, it reduced the download size of a webpage by at least 920%. They said the decrease would result in customers experiencing broadband speeds.
The ASA noted the limitations of ONSPEED were stated on a document linked to the purchase page. We also noted the tests demonstrated that ONSPEED decreased the size of webpages by at least 920%. We considered, however, that the ad did not make clear that ONSPEED would only increase the speed of web browsing and the sending and receiving of e-mails and that consumers might infer from the ad that all aspects of their internet connection would benefit from an increase in speed. We told Turbodial to ensure that future advertising for ONSPEED made clear that it would only speed up web browsing and the sending and receiving of e-mails.
None of this means to say that Onspeed is a bad technology, in fact its quite handy to have; just dont expect it to perform like a proper broadband connection:
http://www.onspeed.com
Turbodial said the purchase page on their website stated that all potential customers must read the information regarding ONSPEED's limitations before purchase. That document stated "ONSPEED speeds up your web browsing and sending and receiving of e-mails ... ONSPEED will not accelerate browsing over HTTPS (secure websites), file downloads such as Quicktime files, MP3, AVI, MPEG, exes or streaming media content (over FTP or file sharing programs)".
They sent results of a test they had undertaken that demonstrated that, when ONSPEED was used with a 56K Dial-up connection, it reduced the download size of a webpage by at least 920%. They said the decrease would result in customers experiencing broadband speeds.
The ASA noted the limitations of ONSPEED were stated on a document linked to the purchase page. We also noted the tests demonstrated that ONSPEED decreased the size of webpages by at least 920%. We considered, however, that the ad did not make clear that ONSPEED would only increase the speed of web browsing and the sending and receiving of e-mails and that consumers might infer from the ad that all aspects of their internet connection would benefit from an increase in speed. We told Turbodial to ensure that future advertising for ONSPEED made clear that it would only speed up web browsing and the sending and receiving of e-mails.
None of this means to say that Onspeed is a bad technology, in fact its quite handy to have; just dont expect it to perform like a proper broadband connection:
http://www.onspeed.com
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