Nice going, New Jersey. The state is accusing Blockbuster of deceptive marketing. Apparently, the company's new "no late fees" policy doesn't actually mean "no late fees;" customers who keep a movie beyond 8 days after the due date are charged the price of buying the movie.

Blockbuster says it has "taken a number of very thorough steps to let customers know how our new program works." Are they kidding? The whole ad campaign, including huge signs in store windows with 75-point font block letters, is based on the "End of Late Fees" message. Incidentally, since the new policy started, I have rented a movie, and nobody told me about this fine print.

Blockbuster would have been better off positioning the new policy as an "extended rental period," which is really what this is. That would have been a reasonable response to Netflix's truly unlimited rental period, and I think Blockbuster would have gotten a good response from people who think that two days is too short but forever is unnecessarily long. Instead, it opted for an exaggerated and deceptive message and is now rightfully getting caught.