With a total fine of 350.000 €, the Antitrust has sanctioned the activity of “Edates”, a site of personal contacts to facilitate meetings between adults, managed in Italian by the German company "Be Beauty GmbH". The authority had opened an investigation after numerous reports from users and the Codacons and "Nero su Bianco" associations for violations of the Consumer Code.
In two other cases, the Authority accepted and made mandatory the commitments of the company Interdate for “C-date.it” and of Meetic for “Meetic.it”, respectively in relation to the conditions of registration on the site, the automatic renewal of the registration and the difficulties of withdrawal, in order to thus guarantee greater transparency and clarity of information.
The fine imposed on Edates is divided into 125.000 euros for deceptive and omissive practices, 175.000 for aggressive practices and 50.000 euros for conduct in violation of consumer rights regulations. In particular, the Authority ascertained the deception of the information relating to the characteristics of the advertised service, resulting that following the free registration on the site, or the choice of the two-week trial subscription offered at 4,90 euros, consumers "they would have found themselves unknowingly bound to a six-month premium subscription at a cost of 19 euros per week (for a total of 76 euros per month and, therefore, a total outlay of around 500 euros)".
Furthermore, on the basis of the investigation, the Agcm ascertained the existence of obstacles to the exercise of contractual rights, considering that on the same site it was difficult to find the information necessary to correctly and promptly exercise the right of withdrawal or to request the termination of the contract. The aggressiveness of the practice was also found in the fact that the operator sent users repeated payment reminders, very often warning that otherwise they would have made use of debt collection companies. Finally, in many cases, the site manager has made withdrawals directly from the credit card provided by consumers upon registration.
As for the other two sites, the company that manages "C-date.it" has undertaken to specify when accessing the platform which services are available free of charge and which are paid for, making all other conditions clearer to users. While "Meetic.it" has undertaken in particular to eliminate the difficulties of withdrawal. For both, the Antitrust deemed the suitable measures to "remedy the possible profiles of illegitimacy of the commercial practice" challenged in the provision of initiation of the investigation.
