The Full Federal Court has dismissed an appeal by two Australian mobile premium service providers against an earlier judgment that particular advertisements were misleading or likely to mislead consumers about continuing premium rate mobile phone subscriptions.
Global One Mobile Entertainment Ltd and 6G Pty Ltd represented that a consumer could purchase services (ring tones, games and quizzes – including a ring tone for Justin Bieber’s ‘One Time’, Space Invaders and Doodle Jump – at a one-off cost, when in fact consumers were actually requesting access to a continuing premium rate mobile subscription. The Full Court found that each advertisement (over free-to-air and pay TV) was designed to ‘hook’ consumers and that post-publication steps in the double opt-in continuum did not dispel the misleading and deceptive nature of the TV advertisements.
This is a win for the ACCC in their strategic approach to meeting challenges in the mobile premium service industry.
Photo credit: Kerosen Photography / Flickr via Wikipedia / Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Licence
