THE COMPETITION AUTHORITY HAS RESOLVED TO SUSPEND THREE ADVERTISEMENTS: VIDEOFONINO H3G, PARTITE DI CALCIO FASTWEB E GILET “ALTA VISIBILITÀ”
PRESS RELEASE
PRESS RELEASE
THE COMPETITION AUTHORITY HAS RESOLVED TO SUSPEND THREE ADVERTISEMENTS: VIDEOFONINO H3G, PARTITE DI CALCIO FASTWEB E GILET “ALTA VISIBILITÀ”
At its meeting on 16 October 2003 the Competition Authority resolved, after examining the cases carefully, to suspend the three advertisements which had been reported to it.
a) The first case is the advertisement for a pre-paid telephone card entitled "Tua Ricaricabile", disseminated by the H3G company published in the daily newspapers and television commercials. The message at issue (which claims: "Your rechargeable phone. From today you will no longer pay for your video phone. Never ever") offering a prepaid telephone card for which a third generation mobile telephone was allegedly offered free of charge, but failing to state or incompletely stating the financial terms and the conditions for technically using the offer. This applied in particular to the real cost of activating the phone and the possible supplementary costs of the prepaid card, the limitations on the technical use of the telephone and the need to own a credit card in order to be able to activate the advertised prepaid card. Considering that this message, even on initial examination, would appear likely to mislead, and that the advertising campaign is still being run at the present time, the Authority has ordered it to be immediately suspended.
b) The second case related to the advertisement by the Fastweb company regarding football programmes available to its subscribers. The message in question ("Fastweb gives you football free of charge" and "All the championship matches, live, without a satellite dish, by fibre optic cable and ADSL") was printed in very bold graphics, while printed in extremely small characters tucked away in another place, it reminded the reader that the service was only for the matches played by the football teams for which Sky Italia was the right-holder. Furthermore, it failed to mention other serious technical limitations of the service.
Considering that the message in question might lead consumers to believe that the service included all the championship matches in the 2003-2004 season, and had failed to mention other technical limitations on the reception of the service, the Authority ordered the whole advertising campaign to be suspended.
c) The third case related to the "High visibility vest" product ("Gilet ad alta visibilità"), disseminated by the D-Mail company in its catalogue. The advertisement shows a safety vest, accompanied by the word "approved", followed by a reference to an alleged obligation on motorists under the New Highway Code to be equipped with special visible signalling systems, and stating that this particular advertised product met all the technical statutory features. However, these requirements have not yet been issued. Considering that even a cursory examination of the advertisement shows that the message is likely to mislead, and considering that the catalogue is currently being disseminated, the Authority has ordered the suspension of this advertisement.
Rome, 22 October 2003