Ads regulator raps PC repair biz for massaging malware infection rates An online PC repair shop was yesterday given a small ticking off by the Advertising Standards Agency – the UK's notoriously gummy marketing watchdog – for claiming that one in three PCs are blighted by malware on a daily basis. The web shop ReimagePlus published a promo on April 21 warning prospective customers: "Don't be part …
Went hunting for that address, Google Maps transformed it into Athinodorou 3, Dasoupolis, Strovolos, Cyprus.
From the satellite image, it looks like a small individual house, not an office building at all. To have that many references pointing to a simple house clearly means something fishy is going on.
I'm surprised* a significant number of people didn't see that claim for the BS it is.
If it completely excludes reinfections then every computer considered by the survey (all in normal use?) would be infected within 3 days. Even if we look at the other end of the scale (every infection is on an already infected computer) the computers in question would acquire 2-3 new malware infections per week and surely become unusable within a few weeks. I'm not saying malware isn't prevalent, but those kind of claims are nuts!
The ASA is a bunch of useless crap - but that shouldn't forgive people who seem to suffer from widespread gullibility. Unfortunately the very people we should accord the highest scepticism (adverts, politicians) are the very ones people seem to lap up with more credulity than they deserve.
*Not surprised
At least 6 Internet-facing machines running with Win 95 initially and on Win 7 today. No AV other than Microsoft Security Essentials. No viruses or malware ever activated in 22 years. That comes to over 30000 machine days, so it would require 10000 idiots downloading naked celebrity screensavers to get the claimed level of statistics. I don't for a moment doubt that there are ten thousand idiots out there, but I suspect there must be enough careful and savvy people around too that make the one per three days figure look almost as ridiculous as the wrath of the ASA. They'll probably just move to claiming 2 infections per week which is a different advert and will take the ASA over a month to respond to.
BT got stopped from claiming the most powerful Wi-Fi, so they've just moved to claiming the best coverage which is equally bollocks.
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