Apple bitten by ad watchdog

SOMEONE IN Apple's marketing mob must have been smoking something really interesting when they thought they could promote the Power Mac G5 as the "fastest, most powerful PC."

When the laughter in the IT industry died down, Dell decided to milk Apple's marketing mistake and lay a complaint with the US watchdog the Council of Better Business Bureaus.

Sure enough, red-faced Apple has been forced to answer its bizarre performance claims and came up wanting.

The CBBB said it had "determined that the evidence provided by Apple did not provide a reasonable basis for its broad unqualified claims".

Unfortunately the CBBB is not a government agency, so its finding carries with it no regulatory or legislative weight, more than the upturning of egg on Apple's marketing department.

In a statement to the CBBB, published gleefully in MacCentral, Apple said: "Apple expressed that it supported the self-regulatory process and voluntary compliance with NAD recommendations. Apple further stated that its ad campaign has already run its course and that it 'will be mindful of NAD's views in its future advertising.'"

In other words it is a cock-up in the marketing department who from now on will probably concentrate on pretty a machine looks. µ