A British television ad touting the speed of Apple’s 3G iPhone has been banned by the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority for misleading consumers, the second time this has happened there. It’s easy to see from the commercial itself, created by ad agency TBWA/London, why the watchdog ruled against Apple (NSDQ: AAPL). The ad, which received 17 complaints, shows a close up of the iPhone as a person zips from the Times web site, to Google (NSDQ: GOOG) maps, to downloading an email. All of the actions are completed in “a fraction of a second,” as the ASA notes, or “really fast” as the ad itself says.

Apple UK defended the ad by calling their claims “relative rather than absolute in nature,” noting that they had “clearly positioned the content of the ad as a comparison of the new 3G iPhone with its 2G predecessor.” Apple also added that “the average viewer was a mobile phone user and would have understood that a device’s performance varied due to several factors.” Plus, they included the disclaimer “network performance will vary by location,” which the company said underlined the potential for performance variations.

The ASA, however, disagreed. The watchdog was unconvinced that the majority of viewers would be “fully aware” of the technical differences between 2G and 3G. They also pointed out that nowhere in the ad was there actually an “explicit indication” that the comparison was being made between the older iPhone model and the new one. In August, another Apple UK TV ad was sidelined for giving a misleading impression of the gadgets internet capabilities, namely that it supported Java and Flash. Read the ASA’s full ruling.