The AGCOM declare war on paid services activated on mobile phones without the users' knowledge. With a resolution of 21 August, the Communications Authority announced that steps will be taken to resolve the issue by the end of 2020. In particular, there is thought of an automatic block of services (which are sometimes real scams) and the imposition of a clear procedure through which customers must give consent to purchase.
For the moment, Agcom's proposal is open to public consultation. But the Authority has written that the final resolution will arrive within four months, ie by the end of the year.
The problem has been around for years. In the past, the Authority had reached agreements with telephone operators on a series of measures, without however being able to completely eradicate the phenomenon. However, the activations of unsolicited paid services fell "from 18,9 million to 7,6 million in the third quarter of 2019 and then further decreased to 3,4 million in the second quarter of 2020", writes Agcom again. A decline largely due to the activity of Antitrust supervision on unfair commercial practices which have resulted in numerous sanctions, in the past years, for operators with overly aggressive marketing. However, in the absence of an adequate regulatory framework by Agcom, the phenomenon continued under the radar.
The Communications Authority recognizes that "there remains a phenomenon of unconscious activations. In fact, a series of reports received during the summer of 2019 brought to light a large number of anomalous activations on SIMs used by the user to remotely control devices of various kinds (e.g. remote surveillance, district heating, etc.) . These activations are difficult to intercept and verify with the tools made available by CASP 4.0 (i.e. the new protective measures, ed.) since, as the card is inserted in a device that does not perform the text communication function, the welcome SMS is not visible to the customer, who only notices the activation from the reduction and/or cancellation of the telephone credit or from the billing document. The impossibility of reading the welcome SMS does not even allow the customer to make use of the right to change his mind and immediately deactivate the service for which he did not consent to purchase”.
Furthermore, the Authority underlines that "the reports sent by the company in charge of carrying out the checks" demonstrate "the inadequacy of the operators' systems to cope with unconscious activations, which suggests perfecting the mechanism for acquiring consent to the purchase of premium services, also in order to make available proof (an SMS, a communication) that the user can keep to contest any charges for unsolicited services".
In the face of these problems,"the most suitable solution to root out the unconscious activation of premium services is the default block” on new Sims. On those already active, on the other hand, it is necessary "to allow both the customer who already has one or more subscription services in place, and the one who does not have any, to express their will to activate the block". Operators could warn users that they are about to block premium services, giving them time to confirm their willingness to get the block, even with tacit consent. To better understand the mechanism, it is necessary to wait for the final resolution of Agcom.
As for method of acquiring consent, are currently ineffective, as they do not prevent unconscious activations. In fact, now just double-click on the wrong page. Agcom therefore proposes that the customer be sent a "one time password” (OTP) to be entered “manually on a web page”, or that users must “reply with an SMS to a predetermined number. In this way, the procedure would be much more explicit and being charged for unsolicited services would become practically impossible.
