According to the Independent Commission for the Supervision of
Standards of Telephone Information Services (ICSTIS), the
unsolicited commercial e-mails from BW Telecom contained a
pornographic attachment and were sent randomly, with no attempt to
prevent them being sent to children.
Once open, a confusing pop-up box encouraged users to press a
button marked "click me" – the normal "X" button closing only a
terms and conditions screen, not the pop-up box. The "click me"
button actually connected users to a premium rate adult service,
from which users could only disconnect if they went off-line.
Moving to another web site did not close the connection.
ICSTIS received hundreds of complaints about the e-mails and
found that BW Telecom was in breach of the ICSTIS guidelines. The
company was fined £75,000 and access to the service was barred for
a period of 12 months. It was also instructed to offer redress to
all complainants.
It is just one of several fines
issued by ICSTIS in the past week – others covering, for
example, misleading recorded prize information.
The tough action taken by ICSTIS is in sharp contrast to the
enforcement penalties imposed to date by the Advertising Standards
Authority (ASA), which regulates the non-broadcast advertisements,
sales promotions and direct marketing in the UK. It is an
independent and self-regulatory body, but has little in the way of
enforcement powers.
One of its most recent rulings, published yesterday, went
against UK company Phone Direct. It had sent an e-mail promoting
cheap telephone services. Four people complained that they had not
consented to receive the e-mails – i.e. that they amounted to spam.
Explicit consent to such e-mail is required by the CAP Code, a rule
book for marketers.
However, while the ASA upheld the complaint, it did little more
than tell the Berkshire-based company to amend its advert and not
to break the rules again, albeit the advertisers did not respond to
the Authority's enquiries, in itself another breach of the
Code.
The ASA deterrent can be summarised as adverse media coverage
and the power to request that its members effectively ostracise
those who break the CAP Code. Its last resort is to refer a
marketer, agency or publisher to the Director General of Fair
Trading under the Control of Misleading Advertisements Regulations
1988. The Office of Fair Trading can then obtain an order through
the courts to prevent advertisers from using the same or similar
claims in future marketing communications.
Fines are seen a good way to deter spammers – but the ASA does
not have the power to levy them and there are only a few varieties
of spam that fall within the remit of ICSTIS. The Office of the
Information Commissioner can also take enforcement action with some
varieties of spam but has not done so to date and in any event its
first step is likely to be only a warning.
Meanwhlie, a report by London tech firm Empower Interactive
suggests that 65% of European mobile users are now being sent
around five spam text messages a week.
