[mech1234]

Advertising fraud is already illegal. The situations where case law dictates what is illegal are varied and nuanced. As a side note, there are many categories of claims that fall in neither "provably true" nor "provably untrue", and enforcing upon these claims is tricky.

You can google for "advertising fraud precedent" "advertising fraud case law" and "advertising fraud case studies" for more information.

[a3n]

> Advertising fraud is already illegal.

Yeah, OK. But here's what happens if a company gets publicly caught. "At ConCo we take ethics seriously. The statements by the employees in question are not in line with ConCo's policies and practices. Those employees will be burned alive, then put on a personal improvement plan, and then their heads will be displayed on pikes at their respective places of employment."

[mech1234]

I think punishing or firing the employees is appropriate. It is often, but not always, also appropriate for those employees to have criminal punishments imposed on them.

I suppose you think that current norms for these punishments are too lax. It's not easy to tell what you actually believe though. If you want to tease out your own actual beliefs on this, look up some advertising fraud cases and find one that was punished too loosely, and find one that was punished too severely.

[12xo]

Right... That’s why you have an “unlimited” data plan that is “guaranteed” or it’s “free”...

There is no such thing as truth in advertising. There is only a Make Lawyers Rich lawsuit..

[mech1234]

Don't those unlimited plans state that data may be throttled, etc? Unless you cite a specific example it's pretty tough to argue against.

To argue against your theoretical case: If there is a data plan that advertises unlimited data without giving any fine print describing the throttling behavior, or other strange details after high data usage, then yes, they should be able to have false advertising claims pressed against them successfully.

[skybrian]

Often there is fine print explaining the terms. You have to read it, though.