Britain's telephony regulator has socked a Swiss company for putting premium-rate dialers for an Internet-based adult service onto British Netizens' personal computers without their knowledge.
DDD Com was fined $93,640 and barred from offering premium services in Britain for six months, as well as being ordered to make redress for all complaints about the dialers, the Independent Committee for Supervision of Standards of Telephone Information Services said July 15.
"Members of the public claimed that a premium rate dialer had downloaded automatically onto their PCs without their knowledge or consent, adding that, in some instances, it had set itself up as the default dialer," the ICSTIS wrote in its ruling. "This resulted in every connection to the Internet being charged at a premium rate, despite the complainants believing that they were connecting through their usual Internet Service Provider."
The ICSTIS also found the aggrieved customers' telephone bills showed DDD failed to disconnect by forced release at the maximum $37 call cost as required by British regulation.
The telephony regulator also announced a crackdown on all companies wanting to operate premium-rate Internet dialer software services in Britain, with the companies now being required strictly to obtain prior permission before they can operate. And no telephone network can give out premium-rate numbers to companies to run such services without written ICSTIS confirmation that they got formal permission, the ICSTIS said.
"We will only grant permission to those companies that satisfy our stringent requirements," said ICSTIS director George Kidd announcing the crackdown. "These are currently being finalized but will cover key areas such as clear terms and conditions, user consent, information about how to delete dialers, and responsibility for customer refunds and ICSTIS fines.
"Our new licensing arrangements are the first step in putting a stop to the type of fraudulent activity we have seen of late," Kidd continued. "But others must also play their part. Phone companies have the systems to identify suspicious call patterns and can take action before their customers unknowingly run up huge bills. Those networks that give out premium rate numbers in the first place have a duty to carry out thorough checks on those they give them to and to look at the speed at which they pass money on to them."
