Why do we, and the law, allow HD manufacturers to screw us?

Question

First of all, before anyone calls me a n00b, I DO understand why a 16GB (for example) drive is actually less, because manufacturers use decimal values when advertising, where as a gigabyte is actually measured in powers of two, giving 1024 megs.
My question is: If the *actual* measurement is agreed to be a power of two, as actually used and understood by operating systems and file systems, then why do we (and consumer laws) allow them to use phoney measurements to advertise their products?
Is this not akin to, for instance, advertising a flask as holding a litre of water, but we decide to interpret a litre as 700ml, which it simply isn't?
Why is this allowed? Why have the courts continued to allow it when it seems to me a very clear case of companies simply screwing their customers by using false mathematics?
Surely a gigabyte should be defined as a gigabyte one way or another and that definition should have to be used by everyone both in advertising AND in practise? See my litre comparison above - that would never be allowed, so why is this?

Answer 1

No one is defending the practice, per se. They're just telling you that 1) it's how it is and 2) where you can to go try and get things changed. This is no longer a discussion that is appropriate for these forums which are for technical support for Apple products, not for arguments about industry policies.
There's nothing more anyone can say. You've been given the explanation as to the apparent discrepancy and told how to proceed if you want to try and change the industry.
Regards.
BTW, your analogy is faulty. A more apt analogy would be if your container was rated by one source in imperial gallons and by another in US gallons.
Message was edited by: Dave Sawyer