Oliver Cragg/Android Authority
TL; DR
- Google allegedly paid influencers money to praise the Pixel 4 series, even though they had never used it.
- According to the Federal Trade Commission the company also paid iHeartMedia to run these “deceptive ads”.
- Google and iHeartMedia settled the lawsuit with seven states and the Federal Trade Commission. They will be fined $9.4 million.
Google and iHeartMedia facing lawsuit for’scam’ Pixel 4 advertisements. The FTC and seven US states sued the companies for airing nearly 29,000 false advertisements featuring radio personalities promoting Pixel 4 phones in 2019/2020.
According to statementFTC Google and iHeartMedia used influencers to help promote Pixel flagships. These lines included: “It’s my favorite cameraphone, especially in low lighting thanks to its Night Sight Mode,” Pictures of all things,” and “It’s also great at helping to me get stuff done.” The new voice-activated Google Assistant can perform multiple tasks at once, making it a great choice for tasks.
Before ads were broadcast, the influencers were never on their phones.
Google allegedly paid iHeartRadio more than $2.6million and $2 million “in conjunction with eleven smaller radio network” for deceptive Pixel 4-powered ads. The lawsuit claims that the hired influencers were not familiar with smartphones before the ads were broadcast.
“It makes sense for people to put more equity into first-hand experiences. Consumers expect radio advertising to be honest and transparent about products, not misleading with bogus endorsements,” said Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healy.
The FTC order and the state rulings to resolve the allegations will prevent Google and iHeartMedia displaying similar misleading ads in the future. They are also asking for fines of up $9.4 million from companies.
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