INTERNET SWEEP 2004
Children and mobile content services
International report from the examination of
websites that advertise mobile content services
aimed at minors.
Content
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Introduction
Background
Participants
How the examination was carried out
Main discoveries
Schematic presentation of the main
results
Follow up of the Sweep
Enclosure: Australia, Estonia, Latvia and
Lithuania’s own conclusions
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Introduction
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On April the 28th 2004 the Norwegian Consumer
Ombudsman coordinated an Internet Sweep.
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The theme was children and mobile content services.
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Supervising authorities in 14 countries participated.
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The Sweep’s goal was to get an overview of advertising
of mobile content services and contractual conditions
when these services are sold to minors.
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In this report the main discoveries of the Sweep will be
presented.
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Background
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Children are active users of telecommunication
products and services, and the Norwegian
Consumer Ombudsman has identified two main
problem areas; problems associated with the
marketing of services, and problems associated with
the conclusion of agreements when services are
purchased.
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The Nordic Consumer Ombudsmen share the
above mentioned experience, and decided to carry
out a Sweep with the theme children and mobile
content services.
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At the ICPEN conference in Finland in March 2004,
Sweden, Finland and Norway gave a presentation
which focused on minors. Norway informed about the
upcoming Sweep, and encouraged other countries to
participate.
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14 ICPEN countries participated.
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Participants
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Australia
Belgium
Canada
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
Germany
Hungary
Latvia
Lithuania
Norway
Poland
Sweden
The United Kingdom
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How the Sweep was carried out
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The officers received a questionnaire to fill out for every
website examined. The search criterias were words like
mobile phone, content service, ringtone, logo etc. In addition
the officers were encouraged to search well known
childrens sites, mobile suppliers etc.
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203 websites were examined.
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The sites examined by Australia, Canada, Estonia, Latvia
and Lithuania are not taken into account in the above
mentioned number of sites. These countries have made
own evaluations of their discoveries. A short summary
follows. More extensive information can be found in the
enclosures to the report.
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Australia examined 540 sites. They noted 11 websites that
necessitated closer examination, and only one site worried
them.
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Canada found few sites that offer mobile content services,
but assume this is because the industry has not reached a
high at this point.
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How the Sweep was carried out
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Estonia examined 17 sites. Only one of them targeted children,and they are
satisfied with the situation.
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Latvia examined 27 sites, but only found two were minors were the target group.
The two sites gave sufficient information, and did not have any unsuitable
content.
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Lithuania did not find any sites that raised concerns, and they assume this has
to do with their transparent market due to the limited number of mobile
operators.
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The officers have chosen which websites to examine, which means that the
sites are not necessarily representative for all companies offering mobile content
services towards minors. The figures should be reviewed in the light of this
information. Despite this, we are of the opinion that the figures give an indication
of the situation with regard to the theme of the Sweep.
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Main discoveries
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The majority of the websites are aimed at children
between 12-15 years and 15-18 years.
The most offered services are ringtones, logoes,
pictures, animations and mobile games.
Only 6% of the examined websites communicate an
age limit.
31% of the examined websites do not give
sufficiently clear information about prices.
30% of the examined websites do not give clear
information about necessary technical adjustments to
be able to use the service/product.
38 % do not inform how many messages the minor
will receive during the subscription.
17 % of the websites reward the minors when they
register personal information.
46% of the sites have unsuitable content for the
assumed target group.
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Assumed target group of the website
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Yes
6%
Under 10
years
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10-12
years
12-15
years
No
94 %
15-18
years
The officers evaluated which target group each website had, and could tick off more than one target group pr.
site.
Few of the examined websites were assumed to target children under 10 years old, in total only 22 %.
77 % of the websites were assumed to target the age group between 12-15 years
95 % towards the group between 15-18 years.
Only 6 % of the total 203 examined websites operate with age limits.
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The offered services
Ringtones
Logoes, pictures
Animation
Video
»Trick a friend»
Mobile games
Information
Chat
WAP-services
Other
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88
62
21
29
64
35
31
37
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Prosent
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The majority of the examined sites offer ringtones, logoes, pictures, animations and
mobile games.
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34% of the websites offer subscriptions, such as weekly jokes, horoscopes etc.
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In general the Nordic countries’ websites offer a wider range of products/services than
the other countries that participated in the Sweep.
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Information about price and contract terms for subscriptions
Yes
66 %
No
31 %
Other/do not know
3%
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31% of the examined websites do not give sufficiently clear information about
price.
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Of the 68 websites that offer subscriptions, the price is assumed to be pr.
received message (sms) in 88 % of the cases.
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38 % do not inform how many messages the minor will receive during the
subscription.
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In addition 22 % do not give information about how the child can stop the
subscription.
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Is information provided about necessary technical adjustments to
use the service/product?
Yes
66 %
Other/do not know
4%
No
30 %
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30% of the examined websites do not give clear information about technical
adjustments of the phone that are necessary to use the service/product.
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Registration of personal data
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17 % of the websites reward the minors when they
register personal information.
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13 % of the sites demand that children register
personal information to get access to the services.
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14 % presuppose or ask for a consent to receive
marketing via e-mail or sms.
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Compared with the results from the Nordic Sweep
last year, the Norwegian figures have improved.
Less sites demand personal information from
minors. We like to think this is a result of the
Consumer Ombudsman’s guidelines for gathering
and use of minors personal information that were
launched in January this year.
Is there any unsuitable content on the web pages seen in relation to the
target group?
Other/Do not know
2%
No
52 %
Yes
46 %
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46% of the examined websites have content that is unsuitable for the assumed target
group of the site. The figures are based upon the officers own evaluation of what kind
of content that is unsuitable.
Examples of »unsuitable content» are pornography, narcotics, violence or other
frightening elements.
The officers have commented that the majority of unsuitable content consists of erotic
and/or pornographic material.
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Follow up
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The Norwegian Consumer Ombudsman will use the Sweep results to elaborate our
demands towards the companies that offer such services, for example limits on how
many text messages a minor can recieve or how much money the minor can spend
on each service.
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The Sweep results will be presented during the next ICPEN meeting in London in
October 2004.
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The results strongly indicate that the industry has developed differently in the 14
participating countries. As in many other fields, this gives us an opportunity to learn
from each others experience and be ahead of the problems.
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Australia
Results from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC)
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Number of sites swept – 540
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Number of sites listed for further review – 11
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Number of sites that raised concern – 1 (action unlikely)
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Overview of Sweep findings
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Australian sites providing mobile services specifically targeting children were not easily identified. In most cases the services
were targeted to consumers who might be interested in downloading ring tones and other mobile phone extras.
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No Australian site was found during this Sweep that offered children subscription services to SMS horoscopes. One site did offer
SMS ‘celebrity gossip’ up dates. This site gave clear pricing details but the only option provided for unsubscribing was that at the
end of the subscription period (time not stated) it would not need to be renewed.
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Most of the children’s sites offered a free ‘join up’ option but this was for the site as a whole and was not restricted to access to
mobile phone extras. These sites did require personal information including name, age and email address before membership
could be activated.
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Australia
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Such sites did include information about how private details would be handled and stated that certain information would be
passed on to affiliates. Specific information was also provided for parents on sites that were for children 10 years and under.
Parents were informed that in order to ensure that such information would not be forwarded children should be discouraged from
entering competitions.
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Competitions that could be entered via SMS did appear on some sites.
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At the point of sale on most of the sites that targeted very young children (12 or under) reference was made to the age of the
potential consumer with children under 14 being asked to get permission from a parent.
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The Sweep, however, did raise a concern regarding the terms and conditions that are provided on such websites. Most sites that
displayed terms and conditions limited warranty liability. This result confirms the findings of a recent study that the ACCC did on
online terms and conditions. In that study the top 1000 most visited Australian sites were surveyed with 334 transactional sites
being isolated for further review. From a detailed examination of these sites it was found that:
(i)
Written terms and conditions are in widespread use by companies trading online. Of the transactional websites
surveyed, 79.3% presented consumers with a written contract which they were able to view.
(ii)
The clauses found in online contracts do appear to raise significant trade practices issues. Of the websites which
contain a written contract:
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54.3% have a clause attempting to disclaim responsibility for the accuracy of information posted on the site;
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50.9% have a clause which attempts to disclaim warranties;
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66% have a clause which limits liabilities; and
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43.8% have BOTH a disclaimer of warranties clause AND a limitation of liability clause.
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Australia
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Currently the ACCC is looking in to this matter but outcomes have not been finalised.
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Complaints to the ACCC regarding mobile phone extras.
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These results do not necessarily apply to children’s sites as this is not always made clear but they give an indication of the types of complaints
that have recently been received.
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Total number of complaints – 23
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Main complaints related to mobile phone extras such as ring tone/games downloads and competition entries via SMS. There were also
complaints against receiving SMS spam. Complainants saw this as a nuisance, were concerned that their privacy was being invaded or were
annoyed that the cost of a return SMS was needed to ‘unsubscribe’.
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Breakdown of complaints
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Ringtones cancellation problems - 3
Ringtones cost eg not ‘free’ – 1
Ringtones – did not receive – 1
SMS – competitions problems entering – 8
SMS – competitions unfair that only via SMS –1
SMS – being made to use premium rates – 2
SMS spam – 5
Games download - did not receive - 1
Misc - 1
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Estonia
Three specialist of the Estonian Consumer Protection Board inspected in 28th April 2004 seventeen Internet websites, offering
mobile services concerning the theme “Children and mobile content services”.
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In Estonia, there is only one website offering mobile services only to children (www.pop.ee). There is possible order the logos,
ring tones, picture messages and watch the cartoon. From this webpage only POP phone card owners can have access to
offered services. The target group of this phone card is children at the age 7-14.
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Other inspected websites haven’t set any service subscription limits to the different mobile packages or mobile service provider
exploiters. But some service subscriptions arrangements can be used only on specific trademark mobile phones. Majority of
websites offer ring tones, logos, picture messages. On the diverse web pages can found following mobile services: horoscopes,
forecast, poems, prank messages, mobile postcard, SMS Chat, SMS Photo Chat, SMS Treff. There is no an age limit set for use
of websites, but the logos in subscription page have divided into categories and have marked what kind of logos are meant only
for adults.
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The service price is the same for all mobile phone owners and do not depend on communication operator. Likewise have been
noticed that value of the service reverberate on the next month bill. Mobile services can be ordered without restraint. For ordering,
the subscriber has not to become a member of webpage in order to gain access to the services, while offering the register facility
also. On the inspected websites there is no consent asked for to send advertising by e-mail or SMS, also consent to receive
advertising is not the condition for gaining access to the mobile services.
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The circumtance, that in the controlled web pages did not discover any illegal actions, no logos, picture messages or SMS games
which ones encourage the minors to violent activity and to use drugs, is good indicator.
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For conclusion we can say that Nordic Internet Sweep 2004 was successful in Estonia.
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Latvia
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The Consumer Rights Protection Centre of Latvia (hereinafter – the Centre) participated
in the Sweep on Wednesday, 28 April 2004 from 10:00 am – 15:00 pm. Due to lack of
staff only one person was participating in Sweep from the Centre.
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I was using the search engine www.google.lv, which is quite popular in Latvia. Using this
search engine and different search terms I tried to detect websites marketing mobile
content services targeted to children or offering enter in to the agreements exploiting
naivety of children.
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During the sweep appeared that most of the mobile content services in Latvian websites
are not targeted to children. I checked 27 websites and found only two sites were the
mobile content services could be targeted to children but both of these websites were
very correct and full information was given on the services, prices, ordering procedures
etc.
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Lithuania
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On 28th of April The National Consumer Rights Protection Council participated in Nordic
internet sweep 2004 program concerning children and mobile content services.
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During the sweep which was carried out according to the sweep guide, any misleading
websites for children and teenagers which are offering mobile content service were found.
All information about the services is true, comprehensive and correct.
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The actual situation today in Lithuania in terms of marketing and contractual conditions
when mobile content services are sold is good, there are only three main mobile services
operators (Omnitel, Bite GSM, Tele2) which offer all those services with all available
information to buy them and there are some but not many companies which also offer that
mobile services based on the same rules like main operators do. So this might be the
reason that no suspicious websites were found during the sweep. Anyway, we are attaching
four completed sweep forms, so that you could see the search results.
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