The High Court of Australia today reinstated a $2 million penalty against telecommunications service provider TPG relating to misleading advertisements on appeal by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). The High Court overturned a decision in April by the Full Bench of the Federal Court to reduce TPG’s fine to $50,000. At the time, TPG submitted that after a trial judge forced the ISP to terminate an advertising campaign, at a cost of $105,000, the campaign was found not to have infringed against the law. TPG also said it had incurred costs of more than $600,000. But the High Court said the $2 million penalty ordered by the trial judge was within the appropriate range and should be reinstated, the ACCC said. The advertisements – which ran between September 2010 and November 2011 – were misleading because they conveyed the impression that TPG’s Unlimited ADSL2+ broadband plan could be purchased for $29.95 per month. But the service could only be purchased for an extra $30 per month plus start-up costs. The Federal Court erred in finding that the telephone bundling requirement and set-up charges were adequately disclosed and consumers would have known that Internet services were commonly bundled with telephony services, according to the High Court. “The tendency of TPG’s advertisements to lead consumers into error arose because the advertisements themselves selected some words for emphasis and relegated the balance to relative obscurity,” the High Court said in its judgement. ACCC chairman Rod Sims said in a statement: “This case is of great significance to the ACCC because it is important that penalties imposed for breaches of the Australian Consumer Law are set at a level that deters future breaches.” Read: AAPT buy could build TPG’s business market: analyst. Related content opinion Website spoofing: risks, threats, and mitigation strategies for CIOs In this article, we take a look at how CIOs can tackle website spoofing attacks and the best ways to prevent them. By Yash Mehta Dec 01, 2023 5 mins CIO Cyberattacks Security brandpost Sponsored by Catchpoint Systems Inc. Gain full visibility across the Internet Stack with IPM (Internet Performance Monitoring) Today’s IT systems have more points of failure than ever before. Internet Performance Monitoring provides visibility over external networks and services to mitigate outages. By Neal Weinberg Dec 01, 2023 3 mins IT Operations brandpost Sponsored by Zscaler How customers can save money during periods of economic uncertainty Now is the time to overcome the challenges of perimeter-based architectures and reduce costs with zero trust. By Zscaler Dec 01, 2023 4 mins Security feature LexisNexis rises to the generative AI challenge With generative AI, the legal information services giant faces its most formidable disruptor yet. That’s why CTO Jeff Reihl is embracing and enhancing the technology swiftly to keep in front of the competition. By Paula Rooney Dec 01, 2023 6 mins Generative AI Digital Transformation Cloud Computing Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe