Trade group reports controversial Oracle advertisements to FTC

An advertising industry oversight group has reported Oracle to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission after the vendor allegedly failed to comply with previous rulings.

The National Advertising Division, which is controlled by the Council of Better Business Bureaus, investigated three Oracle advertising campaigns last year after complaints from IBM. Each of the campaigns contained “an overbroad and unsupported comparison between one Oracle product and one IBM product,” the group said in a statement late Thursday.

In July 2012, Oracle agreed to pull advertisements claiming that its Exadata database machine was vastly more powerful than IBM’s Power Systems hardware, but said at the time it believed the NAD’s ruling was too broad.

“Now, IBM has brought NAD’s attention to a fourth Oracle advertising campaign, featuring the claim that Oracle’s Sparc T5 has ‘2.6x Better Performance’ as compared to IBM’s Power7+ AIX server,” the NAD said. “The advertising in question features the same stark, overbroad IBM-versus-Oracle comparison that NAD recommended against in the three previous cases.”

Oracle has repeatedly failed to “make any (much less a good faith) effort to bring its advertising into compliance,” which has required referring the matter to the FTC, according to NAD’s statement.

An Oracle spokesman said via email Friday that the company disagrees with the NADs’ decision, and “believes the ad is fair and accurate.”

“The ad provides a clear and objective comparison between an IBM Power7+ AIX system and an Oracle Sparc T5 system using industry standard benchmark results that legitimately show 2.6x better performance by the Oracle system,” said spokeswoman Deborah Hellinger. “NAD has failed to take into account the sophistication of the ad’s target audience, namely businesses that purchase enterprise hardware systems.”

Meanwhile, IBM is “gratified” by the NAD’s decision, spokesman Jeffrey Cross said in a statement.

The Sparc T5 advertisement “suffers from the same problems as its former campaigns: A disconnect between the message conveyed by the advertising and the testing offered in its support,” he added.

There’s little love lost between Oracle and IBM, who are fierce competitors in the high-end server market.

Oracle’s hardware revenue has consistently fallen since it got into the business with the acquisition of Sun Microsystems, but company officials maintain they are focused on selling higher-margin products like Exadata, which customers must also load up with lucrative software licenses.

Clock Runs Out On Controversial Texas Abortion Bill

The Texas Capitol rotunda filled with supporters of state Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, who filibustered a controversial abortion bill.


The official clock ran out on Texas lawmakers overnight, which effectively killed a bill that would have dramatically restricted abortion in the nation's second most populous state. Hours of chaos and confusion in Austin finally lifted as Texas Senate leaders decided that the vote on Senate Bill 5 did not clear a constitutionally-mandated hurdle that it pass before midnight.

The vote happened at 12:02 a.m. CT, two minutes after the Legislature's mandated end to its special session. (Special sessions in Texas are restricted to 30 days and called by the governor.) Democratic lawmakers, and throngs of protesters that filled the Capitol rotunda, had sought to run out the clock on the vote all day.

There was the daylong filibuster attempt by Democratic lawmaker Wendy Davis, nearly an hour of procedural back-and-forth and roaring crowds in the gallery that disrupted order and slowed down the process. The Dallas Morning News
describes the scene:

"The extended drama came after Republicans used strict interpretations of Senate rules to knock Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, off her marathon filibuster. The final vote was delayed several minutes by loud applause from the gallery, drowning out the action on the floor."

Republicans left the Senate floor after the vote without officially adjourning the session. Then, curiously, the official time on the vote records changed. The Texas Legislature's official website at first showed the bill had passed on Wednesday, June 26, or after midnight. But it was changed to reflect passage before midnight, June 25. Who made the change is unclear.

A private caucus of the full Senate followed the chaotic final vote.

Republicans ultimately conceded that the bill did not pass in time.

"Regrettably, the constitutional time for the first called session of the 83rd Legislature has expired. Senate Bill 5 cannot be signed in the presence of the Senate at this time. Therefore, it cannot be enrolled," Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said. He added, "It's been fun, but seeya soon."

The victory for Democrats is probably temporary. There's nothing to prevent Republican Gov. Rick Perry from calling another 30-day special session, specifically on the topic of abortion legislation. Polls show Texas voters favor abortion restrictions and it's a deeply red state where Republicans control all statewide offices, the Texas House and the Texas Senate by wide margins.

 

Controversial T-shirt destroys business

The company behind an offensive t-shirt controversy earlier this year has shut down and let go its remaining employees.

Fierce public backlash brought down Solid Gold Bomb, which made headlines in March for offering shirts that said "Keep Calm and Rape a Lot." The company closed its doors last week and let go its remaining three employees.

Company founder Michael Fowler is now swimming in debt and he says he's still getting death threats, including one caller who hounded him for months insisting on meeting him in person.

"It's my fault, and I paid dearly," Fowler said. "My life's work. Twenty years I've been building this up."

Related: The story behind the 'Carry On and Rape Her' shirts

The downfall is the result of an Internet uproar that occurred in March, when someone browsing Amazon's marketplace discovered shirts with messages of misogyny and murder. The shirts were parodies of the old British slogan "Keep Calm and Carry On."

Amazon (AMZN, Fortune 500) immediately pulled down all of Fowler's products, choking off his company's main avenue for sales.

At the time, Fowler issued an apology and explained that the shirts never really existed. The images of offensive shirts were the result of a computer program that automatically generated random phrases and images.

Fowler had used the program to expand his company catalog from 1,000 designs to more than 10 million, casual shirts with pithy one-liners like, "I mustache you a question." The vast number of shirts for sale rocketed him to the top of Amazon searches. By printing on demand, he reduced the risk of unsold inventory.

The apology fell short. Fowler was flooded with spiteful emails. Orders plummeted from 400 a day to 100. It didn't get much better when Amazon finally let him back online three weeks later, Fowler said, because it erased his online history, hurting his search rankings.



Fowler, an American who lives with his wife and three children in Melbourne, Australia, stopped paying himself a salary. He was forced to fire half of his employees -- an art director, print master and customer service representative. He injected $35,000 of his own money into the company.

"I certainly didn't give up. I didn't throw in the towel. I tried," Fowler said.

The company was so financially weak that when it ran into shipping problems this month, the entire operation collapsed. Fowler notified his operations manager and two employees by phone, thanking them for sticking around. He said he couldn't afford the $4,000 plane ticket to see them and deliver the news in person.

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Cristy McCullough, his operations manager in Massachusetts, is helping sell off what's left of the company: computers, shipping equipment, phone systems and shirt printing machines. The idea is to split the proceeds between those who remained. So far they've raised a few thousand dollars. Fowler expects to owe $125,000 to his shipping partner and clothing supplier.

"I'll be paying this for a long time," he said.

But he isn't done running a small business. Fowler has already set up another dye house, and he's vowed to start printing T-shirts again -- this time with a friend in Melbourne.

"I've got to do something. I've got three kids and my wife isn't employed," he said. "Hey, I'm an entrepreneur. I'm already on the hustle trying to build it again."