False advertising
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False advertising is an illegal business strategy where a consumer is lied to or otherwise mislead with the intention of increasing the probability that they will purchase a product.
Special cases
These cases are special in that they feature false advertising and may be indicative of a greater systemic issue without necessarily being illegal.
False advertising in sales
False advertising is not necessarily a problem of the producer itself, a vast number of third-party sellers also handle the distribution and redistribution of products. Producers are only responsible for their own sales in regards to providing sufficient accurate product information. Focusing on the marketplaces themselves exposes significant problems with how marketplaces are moderated and how they adapt to changes in product information.
Poor platform moderation
Poor moderation means that the marketplace platform itself inadequately moderates its seller's content, resulting in potentially incorrect or inadequate presentation of a product's information. Sellers may provide inadequate information for buyers, without any malicious intent which results in harm to both parties. Marketplaces should have strong moderation practices to prevent false advertising from consumers who may simply be unaware of their mistake.
Poor self-moderation
Poor self moderation is the same as poor moderation except that the marketplace platform itself inadequately moderates its own content, resulting in potentially incorrect or inadequate presentation of a product's information. In this instance, all blame is placed on the marketplace itself for the oversight.
Retroactive sale falsification
Retroactive sale falsification occurs when a product listing suddenly contains misinformation due to changes in the product outside of the control of the seller. This can occur commonly with internet connected products, especially physical products dependent on remote servers, if a server goes offline it may cause features of the product to cease functioning. Retroactive sale falsification is special in that false advertising does occur but not due to the fault of the seller at least initially. It is arguable that blame can be put on the seller after significant time has passed and especially if there is evidence that they had become aware of changes
A case of all three
An interesting case of a potential sale falsification occurred with the Spotify Car Thing (SCT) on a site known as "StockX"[1]. StockX creates a page for each product it receives in stock and allows anyone to sell the product anonymously by selling it to StockX, StockX then resells the product after confirming it is functional. As of January 25th, 2025 this site currently uses this description for the SCT:
The Spotify Car Thing was made available in February 2022. The release includes updated software allowing customers to see incoming calls on their mobile devices immediately. The ability to exercise control over various media-playing applications is one of the most notable features offered by the Spotify Car Thing.
The Spotify Car Thing is comparable in size to some mobile devices. They refer to it as a "smart player" on their website. The device features voice control, a touchscreen, a selection knob, a large button labeled back, four preset buttons, and one button labeled settings and mute. It is attached to the HVAC vent, CD tray, and the sticker supplied in the package.
The Spotify Car Thing was made available on February 22, 2022, at a retail price of $80.
Notably, the StockX page does not mention that the SCT had stopped working due to discontinuation bricking, the product being discontinued or bricked is not mentioned once throughout the entire product page.
How this case demonstrates all three cases
- Poor moderation - StockX demonstrated poor moderation by allowing bricked SCTs to be sold, had StockX thoroughly inspected the user delivered product themselves as they claim[1] they would have discovered that it no longer functions; this in of itself justifies updating the product description.
- Poor self-moderation - StockX demonstrated poor self-moderation when they did not update the page after the planned discontinuation bricking was announced. It is possible that they had never learned of this, there is no
- Retroactive sale falsification - Spotify's decision to discontinue the product resulted in StockX's product information suddenly becoming incorrect, not by the fault of StockX.
The purpose of the StockX example is to demonstrate that false advertising does occur in marketplaces and that determining who is to blame can be difficult to establish. While it is undeniable that StockX did not update the page, it is difficult to determine how much of it was a moderation failure versus a genuine lack of knowledge caused by the sudden decision by Spotify.