Why is McDonald's allowed to say 'over 99 billion served'?

History of the number: Ray Kroc Began posting the number of total hamburgers sold, on it's signs in 1955 when Ray Kroc bought his first McDonald's franchise in Des Plains Illinois. At that time the number on the sign was Over 1 Million Served. read more

April 15, 1994- 100 Billion (McDonald's executives announce at the annual owner operator convention that they will stop counting hamburgers served because the count has surpassed the 99 Billion Hamburger mark so all the operators should change their signs to say"BILLIONS AND BILLIONS SERVED" and the signs have remained that way since. read more

For a long long time back in the 1960s the sign continued to display “over 1 million served.” That was a deeply impressive number at first, like 1 million views on Quora. At some point an open slot was added for the number to change: “ over ___ million served” and the 1 changed to a 2. Wow. read more

Over the years the chain has updated its signs to reflect the number of burgers sold: In 1963 the billionth burger was sold, live on the Art Linkletter TV show, no less. The number continued to rise: 5 billion in 1969, 15 billion in 1974, 30 billion in 1979, and 45 billion in 1983. read more