False advertising. How do they get away with it?
Question:
I have always wondered why it is that companies that make clearly false claims about their products do not get sued for false or misleading advertising.
For instance my email inbox is constantly full of spam email for all sorts of pills and creams for making this bigger or that smaller. But we all know that the claims they make are ludicrous.
Is there no law that can be used against these companies?
Answers:
Easy, there is so much of it going on, the law cannot get a handle on it.
make a complaint.
When you said "email," you changed everything. The wonderful world of spam is still largely unregulated. You can say anything you want because it is largely anonymous.
As for regular advertising, it will, sooner or later, catch up with them. There is now this on-going stream of ads from various legal groups who are trying to get people for class-action lawsuits against various companies who sold (or still sell) certain medications.
And it will only get worse. When the chlorine/heart disease link breaks, then one of the largest medical industries, from the doctors to the pharmaceutical companies, will find itself bankrupt. Ditto with the bra/breast cancer link. Ditto with several others.
It wasn't that long ago that the AMA was part of the advertising campaign for certain brands of cigarettes. The battle over smoking/lung cancer took decades to fight, and we are still fighting it.
Want more? Research women shaving. That little phenomenon started after WWI and WWII when advertisers MADE UP medical "research" that "proved" shaving was healthy. It isn't.
Where there is a lawyer, there'll be a way to fight these false advertisers.
welcome to the wild west of nutrition on the net! dude you have to be smart enough to do your own research!
There's an advert on the radio at the moment for therapeutic nicotine, the nicotine that's good for you or something similar.
And how Holland and Barret can call itself a health food store and sell not one single child vitamine without added artificial sweetener in one form or another is beyond me. But i prefer their aromatherapy oils over the ones in the local health food co-operative. They don't have a best before date on them.
Usually the wording is such that no legal action can be taken against the sender. Besides, as pointed out in someone's previous reply, it is very difficult for 'the authorities' to manage and control spam without the recipients' co-operation. In other words, if you feel that there is something wrong with a message, complain.
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