TalkTalk 'safest internet' ad slammed by ASA after BT complaint

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has ruled that a series of TalkTalk adverts claiming the firm offers the "UK's safest broadband" must not run again after it upheld a challenge from rival BT.

In the adverts, TalkTalk claimed its HomeSafe products were the safest on the market because they provide security at the network level rather than using software on devices, a claim challenged by BT as misleading.

The ASA agreed with BT, claiming that while the TalkTalk product did offer some unique services, the adverts were unclear over how this was offered.

"We noted that [the] ad stated 'Our ground-breaking new security service, HomeSafe, is free to all customers' however, we considered that the ad did not make it clear that this was the basis for the claim 'UK's safest broadband'," it said.

"We considered that the claim implied that customers would enjoy the safest online experience when using TalkTalk broadband, and that the qualification used did not sufficiently counteract this impression."

The ASA ordered that the firm must not run the adverts in their current form again.

V3 contacted TalkTalk for comment but had received no reply at the time of publication while BT had no comment to make.

Internet service providers (ISPs) regularly fall foul of the ASA, with BT and Virgin Media both forced to withdraw adverts in 2011 after challenges upheld by the ASA, as the broadband market gets increasingly competitive.