2 sites fined £100,000 for ‘squatting’ on Twitter, Wikipedia

Two firms that attracted traffic to their sites by “posing” as micro-blogging site Twitter and open-source encyclopedia Wikipedia have been forced offline and fined £100,000 each.   PhonepayPlus, the UK regulator of premium rate telephone services (PRS), said the two were found “typosquatting” or using addresses very close to popular websites.   “In both cases, the landing pages for the ‘squatted’ sites looked like the genuine sites the consumer was searching for – the ‘squatted’ sites used the same logos, coloring and fonts. These ‘squatted’ sites informed consumers that they had won or could claim a prize, such as an iPad,” PhonepayPlus said.   Typosquatting is a practice that takes advantage of consumers mistyping when they are searching for popular websites.   Fined £100,000 each and ordered to refund consumers were R&D Media Europe and Unavalley BV, both based in Amsterdam. They were found to use the sites wikapedia.com and twtter.com   “These judgments send a clear message to providers that they cannot play on the public’s trust in well-known websites to promote services. We want consumers to continue to have confidence in the digital market place and we will do everything we can to ensure that they do. Most providers support us in this area as they recognize that this market will only grow if consumers have such trust,” said Paul Whiteing, PhonepayPlus’ Chief Executive.   PhonepayPlus' Tribunal found the two providers breached the Code of Practice as a result of promotions that had misled consumers and that had not provided clear information about pricing.   It said both firms gave consumers the impression that to enter or claim they simply had to enter their contact details and answer some questions.   One screen even asked consumers to input their mobile phone number, and consumers received a PIN number on their mobile phones to use for the website competitions.   “Consumers also began to receive texts to their mobile phones asking them quiz/survey questions, which they could text back to answer. Consumers were charged £1.50 for each question received on their mobile phones as well as £1.50 to answer each question. One complainant said that his fiancée ‘was tricked into a service on youtube’ and that she was charged £63 in total,” it said.   PhonepayPlus' Tribunal published clear guidance to premium rate providers about how services should be marketed online and digitally.   “This guidance reminds PRS providers that they are responsible for all their digital promotions and, if they use marketing firms that mislead consumers through typosquatting, they will be in breach of the Code of Practice,” it said. — ELR, GMA News