Basic Principles

(1) The responsibility for truthful and nondeceptive advertising rests with the seller. Sellers must be able to substantiate material representations made before such representations are disseminated. Sellers must maintain sufficient records pursuant to 940 CMR 6.14 to substantiate the representations made in their advertisements in order that such substantiation can be made available to the Attorney General upon request. The fact that the representations were made in information furnished to the seller by the manufacturer or distributor of a product shall be deemed sufficient substantiation for purposes of 940 CMR 6.03(1) if the seller repeated the representation in good faith reliance on that information. (2) Sellers shall not use advertisements which are untrue, misleading, deceptive, fraudulent, falsely disparaging of competitors, or insincere offers to sell. (3) An advertisement as a whole may be unfair or deceptive although each representation separately construed is literally true. (4) An unfair or deceptive representation may result not only from direct representations and the reasonable inferences they create, but from the seller's omitting or obscuring a material fact.