MTS and Megafon will meet in court on "fraud in advertising." The state will decide who is right

MTS filed a complaint with the Federal Antimonopoly Service due to an advertisement by a competitor, MegaFon, in

which says that this is “operator number 1”. If the FAS recognizes MegaFon’s advertising as improper and in violation of the Law “On Advertising”, the operator may face a fine of up to 500 thousand rubles. Discuss

According to information, the FAS confirmed the complaint from MTS,but declined to comment further. At the same time, the FAS representative clarified that, according to the law, the words “best”, “first”, “number one” must be used strictly according to the regulations: the advertiser must prove the existence of a specific criterion by which the advertising slogan can be confirmed.

In the case of MegaFon, there is such a criterion.The billboards say “Operator No. 1” in large letters, “Speed ​​and Coverage” in small letters, and in even smaller letters, below, an explanation is given that the data is based on research. These are Fastest Mobile Network Speedtest Awards - 2022, Best Mobile Coverage Speedtest Awards - 2022. All data is in the public domain.

According to a member of the FAS expert council on advertisingDmitry Grigoriev, the problem is not that the slogan is illegal, but that complaints can be made about the design of advertising - readers cannot read the data written in small print.