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By Tony Hallett, 19 January 1999 17:17

NEWS The UK's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has forced Demon Internet to scrap its latest ad campaign following a complaint from AOL Bertelsmann Online. The European arm of America Online had protested about Demon's use of the terms 'Still@number.one', 'UK's number one Internet service provider' and 'more people get on with us' in UK press adverts, and the tag 'demon@number.one', seen on posters. Demon's defence was that AOL - which has more users - is an online service provider (OSP), and not an Internet service provider (ISP), and that according to independent market research commissioned by the firm, the public understands the difference. However, the ASA rejected Demon's excuse. It also argued Demon had not made it clear it was always referring to the UK market. The ASA issued a statement which said: "Because the advertisers had not proved that they were superior in a major way, the Authority concluded that the advertisers should not repeat the 'number one' claim." Demon said it will, with immediate effect, abide by the ASA's adjudication by amending its future advertising copy accordingly. The company declined to disclose any financial damage caused by the ruling. However, in a brief response, Demon MD, Roy Bliss, said: "It's a sad reflection on the professionalism of the industry that the attitude of ISPs and OSPs is to avoid agreement on a common approach to the reporting of subscriber numbers." He added that none of the company's rivals would agree to an independently run audit. In an ironic twist, in the time since AOL lodged its complaint, the top ISP spot in the UK has been taken by high-street electronics giant Dixons' free access service, Freeserve, which has clocked up almost one million users in the four months since its launch.