The Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa (ASA) has dismissed a complaint against Cell C’s Unlimited WhatsApp bundle, which has a fair use limit of 1GB.
A consumer lodged a complaint with the ASA arguing that Cell C’s Unlimited WhatsApp advertising is misleading, because the company is imposing a limit of 1GB on the service.
Cell C said the fair use limit is needed to protect the service against abuse from businesses using the Unlimited WhatsApp offer to send out bulky, continuous WhatsApp messages.
Cell C said its investigations showed that, on average, customers use approximately 300MB of data on WhatsApp a month.
In recognition that this was merely an average, and that some customers may use more, Cell C elected to impose a limit of 1GB – more than three times the average use.
Cell C said the likelihood of reaching this limit through ordinary use is negligible, because it would require more than 333 thirty-second videos a month, or roughly 5,000 photographs a month.
The ASA felt that Cell C’s claim was reasonable, saying it does not believe that an average consumer would be misled by the advertising.
The complaint against Cell C’s Unlimited WhatsApp advertising was subsequently dismissed.
