heavy hand ofAntitrust to the three main telephone operators: Telecom, Vodafone and Wind. The Competition and Market Authority imposed two fines on Vodafone for a total of 650 thousand euros, a fine of 400 thousand euros for Telecom and three fines on Wind for a total of 445 thousand euros.
The main sanctions are those applied to Telecom and Vodafone which have kept some active availability services ("Lo sai" and "Chiamaora" in the first case and "Chiamami" and "Recall" in the second), which were previously free and which in the summer have become paid, requiring customers to acquire the implicit consent to use them if not they had taken steps to deactivate them on their own initiative.
The Antitrust explains that pursuant to the Consumer Code, these conducts were considered aggressive commercial practices, consisting in unsolicited supplies.
Always in relation to availability services the Agcm fined Vodafone 150 thousand for a violation of the rights provided for by the same Code in implementation of the European "Consumer Rights" directive. In fact, Vodafone, for sim cards marketed after the transformation of the availability services from free to paid, has in fact adopted a form which provides for the implicit acquisition of the customer's consent to bear the additional cost for the availability services.
The main fine imposed on Wind is the 250 euro fine for the unilateral activation of a onerous service known as the "Service card" to be paid by mobile telephony customers. According to the Antitrust, this practice is incorrect and aggressive because it consists in having exerted such pressure as to considerably limit the freedom of choice and behavior of consumers.
Lastly, the same operators were involved in three other proceedings relating to the distribution of paper telephone directories. Since 2012, the service has been excluded from the supply obligations. The Antitrust has carried out checks on the three telephone operators who did not provide sufficient information on the possibility of giving up supplying the directories and therefore charging the relative amount in the bill.
The Antitrust has accepted the commitments of Vodafone and Telecom, regarding the communication of this right, via web or invoice, for the benefit of consumers, while Wind has been sanctioned for the commercial practice relating to old subscribers and then to new ones, for which the operator does not require the acquisition of express consent to pay an additional cost for the directory distribution service. Fine of 95 euros for the failure to provide information and 100 for the violation of art. 65 of the Consumer Code concerning new subscribers.
