Wednesday, 16 July 2008, 11am-12:30pm
RIBA, 66 Portland Place, London, W1B 1AD
On Wednesday (16 July), PhonepayPlus held an event to launch both its Mobile Review and its 2007/8 Annual Report. Held at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) near Regent's Park, it was an open meeting with 90 non-PhonepayPlus attendees made up of network operators, service providers, content providers, other regulators, law firms and broadcasters.
First though, PhonepayPlus representatives met with the media to take them through the Annual Report and Mobile Review.
After the press briefing, speakers made their way downstairs to meet with the industry audience. Sir Alistair Graham, Chairman of PhonepayPlus, introduced Lord Currie of Marylebone, Chairman of Ofcom. Lord Currie detailed actions that have come out of the new Ofcom/PhonepayPlus framework agreement, and praised PhonepayPlus' specialist knowledge and welcomed the Mobile Review, saying that he hoped it initiated a stronger culture of compliance in an attempt to further build trust in the market.
Next, Sir Alistair took the attendees through the highlights of the 2007/8 Annual Report. He also announced that, with immediate effect, if PhonepayPlus suspects that any service is not abiding by the ‘STOP' command, it will not hesitate to shut down that service immediately. He then welcomed Paul Whiteing, Director of Policy & Innovation at PhonepayPlus, to outline the problems and issues we are experiencing in the mobile area.
Paul backed up Sir Alistair's points on the rise in complaints in the mobile market, pointing out that this is not purely a PhonepayPlus phenomenon, but something Ofcom and the rest of Europe is experiencing as well. In fact, a European Commission report was published on the same day as our Review, stating that 80% of ringtone websites to be investigated for breaching EU guidelines. Paul then focused on the three areas of concern, before handing over to Mark Collins, PhonepayPlus' Policy Executive, to explain PhonepayPlus' proposals and solutions for these problem areas.
Next, the floor was opened for questions. The first audience member wanted to know how PhonepayPlus' analysis of the complaints numbers in the mobile sector of the Annual Report were accurate as he felt there was too sudden a jump in complaints in the first three months of 2008 to be plausible. Paul Whiteing answered that there had, indeed, been an increase in complaints which is mirrored by both overseas regulators and Ofcom, but he also offered that PhonepayPlus slightly changed the way it recorded complaints as of 1 February 2008, but that this had been taken this into account when presenting the data.
In regard to the Mobile Review, another delegate asked whether prior permission on subscription services would apply to existing services or only new ones and, if it would apply to existing ones, how long the implementation period would be. Mark Collins replied that prior permission (if deemed necessary following the consultation) would apply to all subscription services, but stressed that PhonepayPlus' consultation would run for eight weeks and then there would be another six weeks before the policy statement, and then a further two months while the prior permission regime took effect.
Next, an industry member asked why PhonepayPlus was effectively giving service providers eight weeks (the length of the consultation) and then a further three months (policy statement and implementation) to clean up their acts. Paul responded that there was nothing stopping service providers from cleaning up their acts immediately but that, as a balanced regulator, PhonepayPlus needs to consider all consultation responses. However, Paul stressed that PhonepayPlus would move as quickly as possible once the consultation had closed.
Another question from the floor centred around whether PhonepayPlus would provide additional guidance (other than the Code of Practice) to the industry in regard to expectations of behaviour about solicited/unsolicited texts. Paul explained that the consultation document outlines PhonepayPlus' proposals for a Help Note around marketing/promotion. He also explained that the Statement of Expectation which comes out of the consultation will set out precisely how PhonepayPlus applies the Code to these areas.
Going back to the Annual Report, one delegate drew attention to the fact that the amount of fines recovered by PhonepayPlus in 2007/8 doubled from 2006/7, and wanted to ensure that there was complete separation between the way PhonepayPlus runs its business and the expectation of recovering fines to cover that business. Sir Alistair Graham and George Kidd stressed that PhonepayPlus never builds fines into its business plan and explained that any fines recovered in one financial year were never used in that year, but used to reduce funding requirements in the following year.
Next, a member of the audience queried whether free text services are applicable to the ‘STOP' command. Paul quickly clarified that this command and PhonepayPlus' regulation is only relevant to phone-paid services, before moving onto the next question which was whether PhonepayPlus has considered the risk of abuse of phone-paid services on mobiles by use of malicious third party software and, if not, whether it thinks it should. Paul stressed that, although PhonepayPlus has not considered this behaviour as part of this particular review which is driven by complaints evidence, PhonepayPlus is constantly looking at issues around fraud.
The penultimate question from the floor centred on the extreme increase in the volume of PhonepayPlus compliance advice and queried consistency in both this advice and adjudication decisions. Paul explained that the majority of compliance queries were fairly straightforward and, although not legally binding, were taken into account by the adjudication panel. Sir Alistair expanded on this by detailing the separation of the PhonepayPlus Board and adjudicatory panels with the inception of the new Code Compliance Panel.
The final delegate question focused on the levy and asked whether operators that charge more than the advertised tariff should pay more towards the levy than those collecting less. George explained that the levy is based on network outpayments and clarified that PhonepayPlus has audit arrangements in place with all networks to ensure the process is robust.
Finally, Sir Alistair thanked the delegates for their questions, reiterated the closing date for consultation submissions - 11 September - and closed the event.
Click here to see photos from the event.
Click here to see the slide presentation from the event.
Click here to see the list of industry attendees at the event.