The headline reads:

Starting June 8th, we’re giving away 30 iPhones in 30 days via Twitter.

The fine print says:

Winning prize will include a $199 gift certificate to the Apple store, which may be used toward the purchase of an 8GB iPhone, or toward any other official Apple products or services.

I’m calling shenanigans Squarespace and what is misleading marketing. I’m happy to see that Mashable jumped on this last week. Unfortunately,as usual, a lot of people didn’t read the fine print, and tweeted Squarespace in the hopes of winning an iPhone, not a gift certificate. Check out the article on Mashable for why this is a big deal. Here’s a hint: look at the upgrade path for current iPhone users.

For me, this steps over the line and goes right into deceptive marketing territory. Marketers today know that most people don’t read the fine print, so it’s easy to catch them. So why do people hate marketers? I wonder why.

What do you think? Did they cross the line? Should marketers be responsible for disclosing the details to those they market to, or is it the responsibility of the consumer?

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