ASA Slams Tiscali For Misleading Mailings

The ASA has stepped into a dispute between Freeserve and Tiscali by upholding complaints against a direct mailing, which misleadingly claimed Tiscali was Europe’s leading internet service provider.

The advertisers argued the claim was based on the fact their European geographical coverage spanned 13 countries and was far wider than that of any other ISP. They insisted they had never claimed to be the largest ISP in Europe, but maintained their service was available to to 3 million UK members.

They explained their members included persons who had originally opened accounts with ISP’s that had been acquired and rebranded as Tiscali, users with pay-as-you go accounts and those who had not used their accounts for 30 days. However, they admitted there was no universally accepted definition of a member or active user.

The ASA considered the claim that Tiascali was Europe’s leading ISP would be understood to mean it had the largest number of subscribers of any ISP in Europe and because it did not, the Authority concluded the statement was misleading and ordered it to be withdrawn.

The watchdog also found the way Tiscali defined its members to be unreasonable. It ruled the claim that it had 3 million UK members would be confused with the number of subscribers to its service and should not be repeated.

Earlier this year the ASA upheld complaints against NTL for a series of ads, which misleadingly implied it was the UK’s number one broadband internet provider (see ASA Sides With Freeserve In Broadband Dispute).

ASA: 020 7580 5555 www.asa.org.uk

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