By Kim Rahn
A court has ordered Duo, a major matchmaking agency, to correct its exaggerated advertisements, saying the Fair Trade Commission’s (FTC) previous decision to issue a correction order was reasonable.
The Seoul High Court ruled against Duo, which sought to annul the correction order, Thursday.
In its online ads from November 2010 to March 2013, Duo noted it had an “overwhelming number of clients.” As grounds for the claim, it said Duo was the only matchmaking agency to report the number of clients to the FTC.
In a separate ad from April 2012 to October 2013, Duo said that its market share was 63.2 percent according to 2010 sales of four major agencies, adding the FTC released the market share and sales figures in 2012.
The FTC did release the net sales of six agencies by referring to a private credit rating company’s documents when it issued a correction order to another matchmaking agency in 2012. And Duo re-quoted the FTC’s announcement about the sales for its ads.
Regarding Duo’s ads, the FTC concluded in February of last year that they were false and exaggerated, and carried unreasonable comparison with other agencies.
The anti-trust watchdog said it did not officially confirm the sales, but only quoted them from a private credit rating firm’s document. It also said that Duo advertised as if its provision of the number of clients to the FTC meant the commission certified the number.
Then Duo filed the suit, saying its ads were based on objective information.
But the court said the evidence Duo submitted was not enough to recognize that its “overwhelming number of clients” was true.
“Ordinary consumers may misunderstand that Duo’s number of members was much larger than other agencies’ and the company was certified by a government organization,” the court said. “The number of members is an important factor that consumers consider when selecting an agency, so the ads interfered with their reasonable choice.”
About the ads on sales, the court said Duo did not disclose the source was a private credit rating firm, and exaggerated as if the sales were confirmed officially by the state-run FTC.
“As many consumers have believed the false information was true, Duo should not only stop the ads but also post a notice on its website that it received a correction order due to the ads,” the court said.