Rackspace escapes ASA wrath over "100% uptime" claims

published 10 October 2012

Cloud service provider Rackspace has been cleared by an advertising standards regulator to continue using its "100% Uptime Guarantee" slogan in its marketing materials.

A single complaint was made to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) by an unnamed party regarding the sponsored search advert, which described Rackspace as "The World Leader in Cloud Computing & Hosting" and promised a "100% Uptime Guarantee!"

The complainant claimed the advert was misleading, as they did not think it was possible to provide 100 per cent uptime for that kind of service.

However, Rackspace successfully argued that consumers would understand the company was offering a guarantee of service and, if a customer did not receive 100 per cent uptime, they would be reimbursed.

The company also pointed to its service level agreement (SLA), which stated that, if it failed to ensure 100 per cent uptime, clients would be entitled to compensation proportionate to the downtime they had experienced.

In its adjudication, the ASA said: "We investigated the ad under the [Committees of Advertising Practice] Code ... but did not find a breach."

"The ASA considered that consumers would understand that the claim 100% Uptime Guarantee' meant they would be compensated if the Rackspace Cloud network was unavailable...and concluded the claim ... was not misleading."

Tiffany Lathe, vice president of legal international at Rackspace told IT Pro: "We are pleased with the ASA ruling today as Rackspace has industry leading SLAs and our goal is to deliver 100 per cent uptime to our customers."

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Jane McCallion is Managing Editor of ITPro and ChannelPro, specializing in data centers, enterprise IT infrastructure, and cybersecurity. Before becoming Managing Editor, she held the role of Deputy Editor and, prior to that, Features Editor, managing a pool of freelance and internal writers, while continuing to specialize in enterprise IT infrastructure, and business strategy.

Prior to joining ITPro, Jane was a freelance business journalist writing as both Jane McCallion and Jane Bordenave for titles such as European CEO, World Finance, and Business Excellence Magazine.