⠀Q⠀

True. But BYD is also a very, very large corporation.

So if an ad were to make fun of how horrible Tesla’s Full Self Driving feature is, that would be unfair and misleading? As opposed to the pain simple truth?

One thing can be true and still be unfair. A true thing can be misleading. The ruling exists to make the decision easier and make clearer what is allowed or not and what is good business practices:

“Truthfully and fair talking about your business opponent is hard, so let it be and talk about your own strength instead.”

and the world is not ending.

We will see about that. ;⁠-⁠)

Well, I am not the IAP nor the original comment author. But as far as I understand the rules, every comparative advertisement, that is saying competitor X is bad instead of our product Y is good, has the same problem: X can easily say that the selected feature is just one random pick of a range of features. They may retaliate with some other fact. That may also be factual true, let’s say, BYD cars are build without union oversight.

And that starts a negative cycle. You can be in favour of that. It might be entertaining. But by the book that is not allowed to keep advertisement a little more civilized.

Whilst I’m not defending any advertisement at all, one can easily see what happens when it is allowed to talk about your enemies instead of what you provide. Just look at the logical end of this in form of the attack ads of the US political campaigns.

You can do as you please as a private person. If you are BYD, VW or Ford one has to play by the rules of the market.

I think the rules are there to prevent a slippery slope. Ads, which I personally oppose as a whole, can always state positive thinks about the own brand.

It will almost always be unfair and misleading, as it focus on features that disfavor the competition.