AT&T sues ad industry watchdog instead of pulling ads that slam T-Mobile

AT&T claims rule no longer applies

AT&T’s claim that it didn’t violate an NAD rule hinges partly on when its press release was issued. The carrier claims the rule against referencing NAD decisions only applies for a short period of time after each NAD ruling.

“NAD now takes the remarkable position that any former participant in an NAD proceeding is forever barred from truthfully referencing NAD’s own public findings about a competitor’s deceptive advertising,” AT&T said. The lawsuit argued that “if NAD’s procedures were ever binding on AT&T, their binding effect ceased at the conclusion of the proceeding or a reasonable time thereafter.”

AT&T also slammed the NAD for failing to rein in T-Mobile’s deceptive ads. The group’s slow process let T-Mobile air deceptive advertisements without meaningful consequences, and the “NAD has repeatedly failed to refer continued violations to the FTC,” AT&T said.

“Over the past several years, NAD has repeatedly deemed T-Mobile’s ads to be misleading, false, or unsubstantiated,” AT&T said. “But over and over, T-Mobile has gamed the system to avoid timely redressing its behavior. NAD’s process is often slow, and T-Mobile knows it can make that process even slower by asking for extensions and delaying fixes.”

We’ve reported extensively on both carriers’ history of misleading advertisements over the years. That includes T-Mobile promising never to raise prices on certain plans and then raising them anyway. AT&T used to advertise 4G LTE service as “5GE,” and was rebuked for an ad that falsely claimed the carrier was already offering cellular coverage from space. AT&T and T-Mobile have both gotten in trouble for misleading promises of unlimited data.

AT&T says vague ad didn’t violate rule

AT&T’s lawsuit alleged that the NAD press release “intentionally impl[ied] that AT&T mischaracterized NAD’s prior decisions about T-Mobile’s deceptive advertising.” However, the NAD’s public stance is that AT&T violated the rule by using NAD decisions for promotional purposes, not by mischaracterizing the decisions.