Industry reacts to PhonePayPlus and EC action

WIN and Bango among the first to come out in support of regulatory action.

Simultaneously, the European Commission is also taking steps against websites across the continent it estimates are offering mobile content in breach of regulations.

Reacting to the news Sally Weatherall, commercial director at service provider WIN, welcomed the move but added that regulation needs to "bite at the point of consumption".

She said: "[Companies like WIN] must have a responsible and pro-active approach to regulating services. However, they are limited to regulating that element of the service over which they have control [i.e.billing]. The marketing and technical environments outside that control can only be reactively regulated through contractual enforcement. Clearly the rise in complaints and the EU consumer report released this week shows that this model is not as effective as it needs to be."

Meanwhile Ray Anderson, CEO of Bango, said: "There are a few rogue mobile content vendors who have been bringing down the reputation of the industry with bad practices that are blatantly designed to con the consumer. The UK mobile payments standard, Payforit, was created to catch these bad practices by making it much clearer what the consumer is paying for, with the option to cancel at any time. It's good news for all us in the mobile content business that these rogue vendors are finally being investigated and hopefully will either shut down or be forced to change the way they sell their services."