It’s not just you who is curious if the social media celebrity used a new phone. Seven states and the Federal Trade Commission You have suedGoogle and iHeartMedia are accused of running allegedly “deceptive” websites Pixel 4 ads. Promos aired between 2019 and 2020 featured influencers that extolled the features of phones they reportedly didn’t own — Google didn’t even supply Pixels before most of the ads were recorded, officials said.
The Pixel 4 ads were run by iHeartMedia, 11 radio networks and ten other stations in ten major markets. They were broadcast approximately 29,000 times. It is not known how many people heard the commercials.
The FTC aims at preventing Google and iHeartMedia making misleading claims about ownership. The FTC also requests that both companies produce reports proving their compliance. Arizona, California and Texas have all issued judgments requiring the companies to pay $9.4million in penalties.
Google spokesperson José Castañeda told Engadget in a statement that the company was “pleased” to address the situation and took advertising laws “seriously.” He stated that Google doesn’t view this as a lawsuit (it is technically an FTC Order and state judgments) and that it was only settling with six of the seven states.
These phone advertisements are often misleading and not new. HuaweiAnd SamsungBoth have been caught using stock DSLR photos of their phones as representations. Celebrities have a history of marketing phones that it is not clear they use. Gal Gadot needed to ProtectShe was allegedly promoting Huawei phones when she posted on Twitter using an iPhone.
But the allegations here are much more serious. FTC and participating countries claim that Google deliberately used false testimonials. Samuel Levine, FTC consumer safety director, stated that it displayed “blatant disrespect” to truth-in-ads rules. Although the penalty is small, it’s still significant in comparison to the Antitrust penaltiesGoogle has had so many challenges that it could affect trust in their campaigns. Pixels with newer featuresOther hardware.
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