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Sony Ericcson in hot water with Advertising Standards Authority

Posted by James | Filed under tech

Sony Ericcson has received a slap on the wrist from the Advertising Standards Authority over ‘misleading’ claims surrounding the company’s Satio smartphone. The BBC’s Newsbeat reports that the claims centre on the company falsely representing the handset’s ability to access Facebook.

In a TV commercial for the Satio, the handset was shown to be running a Facebook application but a user of the phone later complained to the ASA after it was found the feature wasn’t included with the phone and couldn’t be installed due to software issues with earlier models.

The ASA said: “Because the ad implied the application was either pre-loaded on the phone or would be available to download, and because this was not the case at the time the ad was broadcast, we concluded the ad was misleading.”

Sony Ericsson claim that the problem has been rectified and the application can now be downloaded to the phone.

The Satio has been something of a thorn-in-the-side for Sony Ericcson since it was launched in October 2009. Both Carphone Warehouse and Phones4U were forced to withdraw the phone from sale temporarily following a high number of customer returns, following a buggy operating system.

Sony Ericcson has struggled in the mobile market for some time, with 2009 seeing a 40% drop in handset uptake compared to the previous year.

Tags: Advertising Standards Authority, CarphoneWarehouse, facebook, Phones4U, Smartphone, Sony Ericsson, Sony Ericsson Satio, Television advertisement