Chase and Citi - shady advertising?
Screen shots of Chase pop up via Nationwide Card Services and Citi pop up via MetaReward
Original article by Ben Edelman
My question is: what responsibility do advertisers have when their materials are repurposed without their knowledge or approval?
Is Home Depot responsible for a Home Depot sucks ad?
Is the New York Times responsible for the peddler who hawks their wares with misleading reinterpretations of the headlines?
Is Lilly responsible for all that spam selling bootleg Cialis?
---
Please note that any links directly to card product offers are provided for informational purposes only. Any descriptions within this post about an offer may not necessarily align with the offer to which these links connect.
Original article by Ben Edelman
My question is: what responsibility do advertisers have when their materials are repurposed without their knowledge or approval?
Is Home Depot responsible for a Home Depot sucks ad?
Is the New York Times responsible for the peddler who hawks their wares with misleading reinterpretations of the headlines?
Is Lilly responsible for all that spam selling bootleg Cialis?
---
Please note that any links directly to card product offers are provided for informational purposes only. Any descriptions within this post about an offer may not necessarily align with the offer to which these links connect.
posted by credit-card-grrl | 12:35 PM
1 Comments:
I like the question in your first paragraph. I think that's a fair question, though as you anticipate it defies an easy answer.
To see what some regulators think about the responsibilities of companies who advertise using spyware, see http://government.zdnet.com/?p=2014 (a FTC Commissioner suggesting shaming advertisers to discourage funding spyware), http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2006/02/letter_from_the_antispyware_co.html (same general statement, more detail), http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=41604 (NYAG attorney stating "You don't want to ever assume that the existence of intermediaries, whether it's two or six, is going to immunize you from liability").
I think your second and fourth questions confuse the point needlessly, though. One might reasonably think a company could be liable for an ad that is in fact promoting that company, even if via one or several intermediaries. (So the answer to your first question could be "sometimes" followed by a discussion of what circumstances apply.) Not so for questions two and four, though. Who would hold a company responsible for an ad it did not make, fund, request, or facilitate in any way whatsoever? That's not in the cards.
Post a Comment
<< Home