ADSL ISP ordered to withdraw ad

ADSL South Africa (Broadband South Africa), 3 May 2009

ADSL Broadband Provider, Cybersmart, was ordered to withdraw one of their radio ads after a complaint was lodged with the Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa (ASA).

Bits advertised as bytes... 

Cybersmart made the mistake to advertise kilobits as kilobytes which is misleading at best. This is despite their best efforts to play it down. 8 Kilobits is after all equal to 1 Kilobyte. Cybersmart’s radio advertised 384 ‘Kilobytes’ is actuallly 384 Kilobits which are in reality only 48 Kilobytes. Cybersmart’s excuse of jogging ‘...the memories of uninformed Internet users’ or to rhyme ‘bytes’ with ‘price’ do not stick with us. ADSL South Africa (Broadband South Africa) see it as sophistry at best. We agree with the ASA which concluded that a reasonable person would be misled and that Cybersmart must witdraw the relevant radio ad with immediate effect. Needless to say, Cybersmart are not allowed to use the relevant radio ad in it’s current format again. 

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