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Spot Check: Are your price reduction ads putting you at risk?

By on 2 August 2009 in advertising, Spot Check, Trade Practices Act

NEW mobile phone!! WAS $399 NOW $199!!

BRAND NEW phone!!  $199 – SAVE over 50%!!

1052433_shoppingAds that show ‘two price’ or ‘was / now’ pricing are common, effective and legal … provided they’re not misleading. There are special rules about how to get ‘was / now” pricing ads right. While care needs to be taken, getting it right is relatively easy.

Getting it wrong can be costly, as the former owners of the Zamel’s jewellery chain have found – the ACCC took them to court over allegedly misleading ‘was / now’ price ads in one of their catalogues. In January 2009, the court handed down a fine of $380,000.

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iiNet and AFACT both claim ‘win’ in preliminary discovery issues

By on 16 June 2009 in iiNet Case

204799_filesWe previously reported iiNet’s request for AFACT to give it access to various documents relating to the film studios’ potential actions against other ISPs in Australia and overseas.

Yesterday, the Federal Court largely rejected iiNet’s request, limiting the scope of the documents to be produced by AFACT to certain categories  relating to local infringement investigations.

At the same time, the Court ordered that iiNet discover the details of 20 anonymous customer accounts, well short of the 300 to 400 accounts reportedly sought by AFACT.

Both sides were quick to claim a minor victory – AFACT saying 20 accounts is sufficient for them to prove their case and iiNet saying they have effectively got the documents they asked for.

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Why it pays to listen to ACCC warnings

By on 15 June 2009 in advertising, Trade Practices Act

CautionYou can’t say the ACCC doesn’t give fair warning.

Back in November 2008 we reported that the ACCC were getting ‘very cranky’ about premium SMS. And in March this year, ACCC supremo, Graeme Samuel, gave a direct warning to the industry about premium SMS.

Well, the ACCC has stuck to its word and launched two separate actions in the Federal Court against AMV Holdings and Clarion Marketing Australia.

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ISP copyright infringement – victory in NZ? … maybe not

By on 25 February 2009 in copyright

131304_victory_signWith copyright infringement and ISPs a hot issue at the moment, we were interested to hear some news from New Zealand on the topic.

Online civil liberty group, Electronic Frontiers Australia, reports on a ‘remarkable victory’ by ISPs in New Zealand in relation to what EFA calls ‘guilt upon accusation’ laws.

Sounds promising, we thought, as we followed the link in our RSS reader.

Problem is, when we got there, we couldn’t figure out what was particularly remarkable or victorious.

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Turning up the heat on premium mobile service providers

By on 13 January 2009 in Spam Act, Trade Practices Act

HeatWe’ve previously talked about premium mobile services being a regulatory hotspot for 2009.   We’ve got the ACCC getting cranky about it, a proposed new code from the Comms Alliance and ACMA beating up mBlox and TMG Asia Pacific.

In a sign that things are going to stay hot (and probably get hotter) for premium mobile service providers, ACMA has now launched Federal Court proceedings against Mobilegate Ltd (a Hong Kong company), Jobspy Pty Ltd, Winning Bid Pty Ltd and individuals associated with those companies for breaches of the Spam Act and Trade Practices Act.

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Federal Court: Clarus Telecom misled consumers

By on 27 November 2008 in Trade Practices Act

The Federal Court yesterday made declarations that Clarus Telecom breached the Trade Practices Act by misrepresenting (through their telemarketers) that their services were affiliated with or provided on behalf of Telstra.

The declarations, which were made by consent, came about after the ACCC issued proceedings against Clarus at the start of September over the conduct of its telemarketers.

In addition to the declarations, Clarus was ordered (by consent) to:

  • publish corrective notices on their website
  • publish an article educating the industry about compliance with the Act
  • pay the ACCC’s costs of the court proceedings
  • implement a Trade Practices compliance program

The ACCC media release is available here.

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Film heavyweights sue iiNet for copyright infringement

By on 20 November 2008 in General

Breaking News: A host of major film studios and Channel 7 have today launched legal proceedings in the Federal Court against iiNet alleging copyright infringement.

The studios are claiming that iiNet infringed copyright by not stopping iiNet customers from using BitTorrent to infringe the studios’ copyright in their respective films.

Under Australian law, a person can be liable for infringement if he or she ‘authorises’ another person to infringe copyright.

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Spot Check: Thinking of running a competition?

By on 28 July 2008 in Spot Check

Competitions can be an excellent marketing tool – a great way to promote your business, attract new customers or generate interest in a product.

But competitions, where they involve an element of chance, are often regulated as a type of ‘lottery’. In this spot check we’ll look at how a little forward planning can save some unwanted pain down the track.

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