As the owner of a cracked, dirty, degrading phone, I wouldn't make claims that its night camera is very good for taking pictures of something as fast moving as a meteor shower, let alone my late night selfies.
The radio personalities were paid by the company to make similar claims about the phone. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission said on Monday that there were thousands of deceptive ads for the phone. Many of the radio personality who were asked to boost the phone's features never got their hands on it, but were told to promote it anyway as if they had.
The FTC and seven other states will get $9.4 million for running fake endorsements, which was done by iHeartMedia. The consent agreement prohibits the company from getting people in endorsements to say they've used a product when they haven't. The order will be voted on by the FTC Commissioners after a 30-day public comment period.
iHeartMedia was once a giant in the space, and had been working to repair its business and image ever since it declared bankruptcy. The legacy radio company recorded and promoted the Pixel 4 ads that included first-person endorsements from local radio personality. According to the original complaint filed against both companies, iHeartRadio owns more than 850 AM and FM radio stations and allows the personality of those stations to get extra cash for recording ads for clients
The radio personality received a basic script.
It’s my favorite phone camera out there, especially in low light, thanks to Night Sight Mode.
I’ve been taking studio-like photos of everything… my son’s football game… a meteor shower… a rare spotted owl that landed in my backyard. Pics or it didn’t happen, am I right?
Pixel 4 is more than just great pics. It’s also great at helping me get stuff done, thanks to the new voice activated Google Assistant that can handle multiple tasks at once.
They didn't receive a phone to make claims that they were using the cameras to take pictures of the rare meteor showers or any event where their child gets mauled in a football game, even though they were able to modify the script. One employee of the radio station complained that their personality couldn't use first-person tenses in ads if they didn't hold the phone.
Dozens of personality in markets all across the country recorded ads that were similar to the original script, and the ads were shared thousands of times on-air. An employee of the radio station complained after being asked for more ads by the search engine. The radio employee was linked to an info page after a Google representative said the company couldn't give phones at this time.
Bureau of Consumer Protection Director Samuel Levine called it a blatant disrespect for truth in advertising rules.
The company was happy to resolve the issue, according to Castaeda. He said that they take compliance with advertising laws seriously and have processes in place to make sure they follow industry standards.
A $392 million settlement with 40 state attorneys general was for not turning off location data collecting despite user settings indicating their data wasn't being collected.
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