Just announced by Flowers Canada:
RE: RULING ON MISLEADING TRADE PRACTICES
I am the Executive Director of Flowers Canada Retail (FCR), the national trade association representing retail florists in Canada. FCR has recently received a complaint from Denise Scapellino, owner of the Flower Cellar, a member florist in Mississauga, concerning a website operated by a competitor. The offending website has included the complainant’s business address in a list of Toronto-area florists without the complainant’s knowledge or consent. The biggest problem with the offending listing is that is accompanied by a hypertext link which, in fact, goes directly to the competitor’s website under the generic URL, www (dot) afloristintoronto (dot) com. As a result, unsuspecting users who access this website through the link are left with the impression that they are purchasing flowers from the listed florist, when they are, in fact, placing the order with an entirely different florist. According to the complainant, there has been a substantial downturn in her business since this link was placed on the www (dot) afloristintoronto (dot) comhttp://afloristintoronto.com/ website. She believes that many of her former customers have been misled to place orders with her competitor as a result of the misleading listing and link.
While the offending listing does not purport to offer any specific product, this misuse of the complainant’s business address does on its face, appear to constitute an unfair trade practice under the Competition Act.
As the trade association representing retail florists across Canada, FCR is particularly concerned that this is not an isolated issue between two individual florists. Rather it is representative of the sort of misleading advertising within the florist trade that has become commonplace on the Internet. Companies represent themselves as being local florists in a particular town or city when, in fact, they are nothing more than call centres that gather orders which they then re-direct to local florists after charging a substantial commission for obtaining the order. The damage being sustained by legitimate local florists as a result of this misleading trade practice is very substantial.
In the case of the website that is the subject of this complaint, we find that, in addition to the complainant’s address, it lists addresses of over 65 individual shops in the metro Toronto area, each of which links to the e-commerce website operated by the owner of the www (dot) afloristintoronto (dot) com website. Thus the listing of the complainant’s business address is not an isolated case.
We would be obliged if you could look into this matter and let us know whether the listing of other businesses in this misleading way does, in fact, constitute an unfair trade practice under the Competition Act. If so, we would ask that appropriate enforcement action be taken to compel the offending party to remove the misleading list from their website and to compensate any parties who have been adversely affected by their unfair trade practices.
Sincerely,
Arman Patel, B.A.,M.A., MBA
Executive Director
Flowers Canada Retail
RE: RULING ON MISLEADING TRADE PRACTICES
I am the Executive Director of Flowers Canada Retail (FCR), the national trade association representing retail florists in Canada. FCR has recently received a complaint from Denise Scapellino, owner of the Flower Cellar, a member florist in Mississauga, concerning a website operated by a competitor. The offending website has included the complainant’s business address in a list of Toronto-area florists without the complainant’s knowledge or consent. The biggest problem with the offending listing is that is accompanied by a hypertext link which, in fact, goes directly to the competitor’s website under the generic URL, www (dot) afloristintoronto (dot) com. As a result, unsuspecting users who access this website through the link are left with the impression that they are purchasing flowers from the listed florist, when they are, in fact, placing the order with an entirely different florist. According to the complainant, there has been a substantial downturn in her business since this link was placed on the www (dot) afloristintoronto (dot) comhttp://afloristintoronto.com/ website. She believes that many of her former customers have been misled to place orders with her competitor as a result of the misleading listing and link.
While the offending listing does not purport to offer any specific product, this misuse of the complainant’s business address does on its face, appear to constitute an unfair trade practice under the Competition Act.
As the trade association representing retail florists across Canada, FCR is particularly concerned that this is not an isolated issue between two individual florists. Rather it is representative of the sort of misleading advertising within the florist trade that has become commonplace on the Internet. Companies represent themselves as being local florists in a particular town or city when, in fact, they are nothing more than call centres that gather orders which they then re-direct to local florists after charging a substantial commission for obtaining the order. The damage being sustained by legitimate local florists as a result of this misleading trade practice is very substantial.
In the case of the website that is the subject of this complaint, we find that, in addition to the complainant’s address, it lists addresses of over 65 individual shops in the metro Toronto area, each of which links to the e-commerce website operated by the owner of the www (dot) afloristintoronto (dot) com website. Thus the listing of the complainant’s business address is not an isolated case.
We would be obliged if you could look into this matter and let us know whether the listing of other businesses in this misleading way does, in fact, constitute an unfair trade practice under the Competition Act. If so, we would ask that appropriate enforcement action be taken to compel the offending party to remove the misleading list from their website and to compensate any parties who have been adversely affected by their unfair trade practices.
Sincerely,
Arman Patel, B.A.,M.A., MBA
Executive Director
Flowers Canada Retail
