Telstra & Optus clamp down on premium SMS shonks

Stuart Corner
Monday, 09 November 2009 08:04

IT Policy - Government Tech Policy

Telstra product management executive director, Ross Fielding, said: "We want to make sure the premium SMS industry is sustainable and that it delivers services that are valued by customers like ringtones, weather reports and television voting. Third-party monitoring will help us to enforce our codes consistently and improve standards in the Premium SMS marketplace further."

In what must be something of understatement,  Fielding said that Telstra had "recognised that some customers were dissatisfied with premium SMS service," and had "made real progress"  in dealing with the issue.

"In April we announced new measures to safeguard customers from unintentional subscriptions to premium SMS services including the extension of the double opt-in arrangement to all subscription services regardless of the method of subscription. We also made changes to our customer service processes to simplify premium SMS enquiries."

According to Fielding, "Today, SMS issues reported to the TIO by Telstra customers are now less than a third of what they were this time last year. We are determined to improve this performance even further."

WMC Global CEO, Colin Matthews, said: "As the sole provider of third-party content monitoring in the United States we bring significant expertise in safeguarding the mobile premium services environment for all stakeholders—consumers, carriers, content providers and aggregators who play by the rules, and industry associations."

WMC says it also undertakes Q&A communications with content providers and aggregators "to eliminate noncompliant advertising, services, and SMS message flows within strict timeframes, with persistent noncompliance escalated to affected carriers."