ASA Adjudication on Fasthosts Internet Ltd

Ad

Two magazine ads and two internet banner ads for the website hosting company Fasthosts Internet Ltd (Fasthosts). a. One magazine ad stated "Great value web hosting from the UK'S Number 1 web host* … *Print source: Netcraft June 2008". b. A second magazine ad stated "Fasthosts Over 2 times more UK hosted websites than its nearest competitor … Still the No.1 for UK hosted websites". The ad included a graph that showed bars for Fasthosts, Webfusion & Co (broken into sections for Webfusion, Donhost and GxNetworks), UK2.Net, Rackspace and Heart Internet. A footnote stated "Source: Netcraft May 2008" c. One banner ad stated "Fasthosts Over 2 times more UK hosted websites than its nearest competitor … Still No.1 for UK hosted websites". d. A second banner ad stated "Over 2 times more UK hosted websites than its nearest competitor" and showed a graph that included several unlabelled bars. Footnote stated "Source: Netcraft June 2008".

Issue

GX Networks Ltd challenged whether:

1. the claim in ad (a) that Fasthosts was the "UK'S Number 1 web host" was misleading, because they believed the data used to support the claim was flawed;

2. the claims "Over 2 times more UK hosted websites than its nearest competitor" in ads (b), (c) and (d) were misleading and could be substantiated;

3. the graphs in ads (b) and (d) misleadingly exaggerated the number of websites hosted by Fasthosts.

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

1. Fasthosts said the data was sourced from an independent research company, Netcraft.  They said they used the data accurately and did not alter any figures.  They sent a copy of the May 2008 and June 2008 figures that they had used as the basis for their claims.  Fasthosts maintained that Netcraft were a widely respected source of internet research and stressed that GX Networks had also sourced information from them to produce ads.

2. Fasthosts said the Netcraft data clearly showed that Fasthosts had over twice as many UK hosted websites than its nearest web hosting company competitor.

3. Fasthosts pointed out that the graphs represented accurately the numbers in the May 2008 Netcraft report.  Fasthosts believed the graphs implied that the data represented only the websites hosted by Fasthosts, i.e. those in Fasthosts UK data centre. They said the figures used did not include any UK hosted websites of their affiliate Group companies.  They pointed out that the data used to generate the graph did, however, include GX Network Group companies.

Assessment

1. Upheld

The ASA noted Fasthosts had provided data from Netcraft, which was an Internet services company specialising in Internet security and providing research in a variety of areas of the internet.  We noted their data on web hosting measured two metrics; the number of hostnames and the number of active sites. We noted hostnames referred to the number of domain names, for instance, www.asa.org.uk, that each web host had registered, whereas active websites referred to the number of hostnames that had been found to have unique content.

We noted ad (a) claimed that Fasthosts were the "UK'S Number 1 web host" and considered that readers were likely to understand the statement as a claim of market leadership in the UK web hosting market.  We noted web hosts provided a variety of services based around the hosting of websites and considered that readers were unlikely to be familiar with the specifics of their business.  We noted the June 2008 Netcraft data showed that Fasthosts had the most hostnames and active sites. However, we were concerned that there was no strict agreement within the industry on the most appropriate measure of the market share of a web host i.e. sales by value or volume, or whether those measures were appropriate at all.  Consequently, we considered that Netcraft data was insufficient to support an unqualified claim of market leadership.  We therefore concluded that the ad was likely to mislead.

On this point, ad (a) breached CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation), 7.1 (Truthfulness) and 19.1 (Other comparisons).

2. Upheld

We noted GX Networks were concerned that the Netcraft figures for May and June 2008 were inaccurate due to an error in allocating a series of domains to the correct web host. We understood that domains formerly belonging to Pipex.net had been transferred to new hosts but that had not been factored into the Netcraft figures in May and June 2008.  We considered that the confusion over the correct provider of those domains compromised the accuracy of the Netcraft figures produced at that time, although we acknowledged Netcraft had subsequently corrected the error. Furthermore, we noted the claims in the internet banner ads c) and d) were based on the Netcraft figures for May and June 2008, although they appeared in September and October respectively. We noted the update Netcraft figures showed that the position had changed significantly. We were therefore concerned that Fasthosts had continued to use the out-of-date figures to support their claim.

We noted ads (b), (c) and (d) were based on the Netcraft data from May 2008 and June 2008.  We considered that, although ads (b) and (c) also featured the claim "No.1 for UK hosted websites", the reference to the number of websites hosted was likely to lead readers to understand that the claims focused specifically on an aspect of Fasthost's business rather than a general claim of market leadership as in ad (a).  We noted, however, there was no general agreement on an appropriate method of measuring the number of websites hosted. We understood that hostnames measured, for instance, individual websites with multiple registered domain names and included 'parked' websites that did not contain what might be considered to be original content.  We noted the active sites measure attempted counted only hostnames with unique content, but at the same time removed a significant number of websites registered under hostnames. We also understood that other sources of data could be used as a measure.

In the absence of an accepted measure, we were concerned that without adequate clarification of the specific measure being used such broad claims were ambiguous and likely to confuse readers.  We noted, for instance, it was conceivable that one web host could have the most host names and another, the most active sites, which could result in two claims to have the most hosted websites. Although we noted, for the period May 2008 and June 2008, Fasthosts were shown by the Netcraft data to have the most host names and the most active sites, we considered that the lack of agreement about the use of the metrics rendered the claims in ads (b), (c) and (d) ambiguous.

Because the ads used data for the period in question that had been shown to be flawed and because the ads did not make sufficiently clear the basis of the claims, we concluded that the ads were likely to mislead.

On this point, ads b), c) and d) breached CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation), 7.1 (Truthfulness). Ad b) also breached CAP Code clauses 18.1 and 18.2 (Comparisons with identified competitors and/or their products). Ads c) and d) also breached CAP Code clause 19.1 (Other comparisons).

3. Upheld

We noted the Netcraft data used for the graphs featured an inaccuracy and considered that the accompanying claims were likely to confuse readers as they did not state specifically what metric was being measured.  Consequently, we concluded that the graphs, which echoed those claims, were likely to mislead.

On this point, the ad breached CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation), 7.1 (Truthfulness), and 19.1 (Other comparisons).

Action

On point 1, we told Fasthosts not to make unqualified market leadership claims in future unless they had comprehensive up-to-date data to show that, by value or volume, they were the top selling web host.

On points 2 and 3, we told Fasthosts to ensure that future ads based on Netcraft data clarified the measure being used and avoided making unqualified statements about hosted websites, when no definition of how to measure them existed.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)