Broadband News

TalkTalk broadband advertising campaign banned

Thursday 5 January, 2012

By Duncan Heaney

Safest broadband in the UK claim dubbed “misleading”.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), the UK’s advertising regulator, has ruled that TalkTalk is no longer allowed to promote itself as offering “the UK’s safest broadband”.

Back in May, TalkTalk launched its HomeSafe service, which is designed to help parents block children from accessing adult content online. Since then, it’s been heavily promoting the service on TV, posters and in newspapers as “the UK’s safest broadband”.

The ASA got involved after rival broadband provider BT and two members of the public complained that the advertisements were misleading.

TalkTalk stood by their campaign, explaining that HomeSafe is the only service that provides security features at “network level”, providing notifications about possible viruses and letting parents block children from accessing certain websites without installing any software.

But the ASA wasn’t convinced. It claimed that many customers would assume “safest” means full protection against online threats like hacking and viruses, and believe that TalkTalk provides the most secure online experience of any provider. In fact, it stated, the HomeSafe service only provides a “basic range of security features”.

In addition, the advertising watchdog ruled that most consumers would not understand what “network level security” means, and could mistakenly believe it refers to other features such as the security of the wireless network.

It concluded that the promotional campaign was misleading and that TalkTalk could no longer use it.