Apple cleared of Windows FUD campaign

THE ADVERTISING Standards Authority (ASA) cleared Apple after complaints that PCs were more vulnerable to virus attacks than Macs.

Apple ran an ad campaign contrasting virus riddled PCs to virus free Macs but some complainants said viruses attacked operating systems and software, not hardware.

Other complainants said they believed that if the PCs ran Linux rather than Microsoft Windows, they would be less vulnerable to virus attack too.

In its defence Apple produced a survey showing the "desktop market for Linux users was ver y small" and that in a sample of 10 million users only 0.41 per cent of them used the Linux operating systems.

Apple also produced excerpts from journalistic scribblers which showed PCs running Windows often crashed or needed to be re-started while Macs rarely did.

The ASA squished the complaints, and said Apple had no case to answer. µ

L'INQ
The adjudication