web analytics

Toshiba – Leading in Innovation and Leading in Misleading Advertising Designed to Look LIke News Reporting

Earlier this year, we reported on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) action against advertising that’s embedded with news stories so as to appear to be factual.

Apparently nobody at Toshiba got the memo from the FTC. If you purchase a new Toshiba computer, it will come configured to automatically load the Official Toshiba Start Page for Internet Explorer.

The Toshiba Start Page is designed to look like a news website, and initially when the page loads, a slide-show presents images and links to current news stories. Yet, in a short while, lead news stories are subtly replaced with ads. If you click on the ads, you may end up in a bad neighbor website

Below is a gallery with samples of what Toshiba is passing off as news. As you’ll see below, initially, a story about Neil Armstrong had a photo of Lance Armstrong mistakenly used. This was later corrected.

By Greg Johnson

Greg Johnson is a freelance writer and tech consultant in Iowa City. He is also the founder and Director of the ResourcesForLife.com website. Learn more at AboutGregJohnson.com