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Better Business Bureau (BBB) has rapped Dell over laptop ads claiming to be the world’s most secure notebook after a complaint was filed by Lenovo.

BBB’s purpose is to act as a mutually trusted intermediary between consumers and businesses to resolve disputes, to facilitate communication, and to provide information on ethical business practices.

The bureau’s National Advertising Division (NAD) said in a report released last week that Dell did not have sufficient evidence to back up a claim in its advertisements that labeled the notebooks as “world’s most secure.”

The complaint is focused on encryption features used in the notebooks. Dell based the claim on its use of encryption hardware and software from third party vendors. Lenovo, who uses in-house encryption products, filed the complaint accusing Dell of making the ‘most secure’ claim without proof.

The bureau agreed, to an extent saying although the security features were innovative, the company could not guarantee that Dell could not back up the claim, particularly amongst smaller businesses and networked machines.

According to BBB:

Although NAD determined that the advertiser could truthfully advertise its position as the first in the industry to combine these particular third-party components in creating secure systems for large businesses, NAD observed the distinction between the security provided to the individual computers and the security provided to a large network of computers.

Since not all of the components of the FDE Encryption Solution are equally relevant for all sizes of business, NAD recommended the advertiser make this distinction to the extent it intends to make broad security claims.

The NAD did not mention any penalties to be levied in the case, noting that Dell had voluntarily discontinued the ads after the investigation was announced.

Dell vowed to comply with the NAD’s recommendations and said that it was pleased with the findings in regards to the validation of the ‘unique’ and ‘meaningful’ labels.

Credit: VNUNET