The announcement of an investigation into the Jamster service by UK premium rate regulator ICSTIS has been welcomed by one of the companies likely to be under investigation.
mBlox, the mobile services provider specialising in message transmission and payment processing, has said it supports the investigation which will determine if the Jamster service, in particular the Crazy Frog ringtone service, conforms to the ICSTIS Code.
Jamba, one of mBlox’s customers in the UK, operates the Jamster service. Because mBlox is the service provider that maintains contracts with the six UK mobile network operators, mBlox is a formally named party under investigation.
mBlox’s executive chairman, Andrew Bud, is the regulatory director of the Mobile Entertainment Forum and a member of the ICSTIS board.
“mBlox is currently working within industry organisations to review the guidelines and is closely cooperating with the ICSTIS investigation,” says Bud, executive chairman of mBlox. “The result will be clear rules of best practice and greater consumer confidence, to the benefit of the whole mobile services industry.”
Mobile content shops powered by ‘browse and buy’ technology, claims Bango, should replace the highly criticised mobile subscription services, which have generated thousands of consumer complaints.
Bango says that companies such as Jamster have been accused of misleading people into signing up for a subscription service with a weekly fee when they thought they were buying just one piece of content.
In the UK, which has a track-record of self-regulation, mobile operators are looking to the industry to clean up its act. In Germany, operators are already requiring double opt-ins while US operators are considering doing the same. In this case, a user would have to text back or reply to an email to confirm that they want to join the subscription service.
An increasing number of mobile internet based content shops from brands such as The Sun newspaper, Channel 4, Maxim magazine and Sony/BMG and now giving people the opportunity to browse a catalogue of content before deciding to buy. Users only pay for the content they want, an approach that builds customer loyalty and confidence in mobile content services.
“We believe it is more responsible to take people into the content shop without up-front charges, where the terms and conditions of the service are clearly visible,” says Martin Harris, Director of Sales at Bango.