Mobile Premium Services: Meeting the Challenges

Citation
Australian Competition & Consumer Commission, Mobile Premium Services: Meeting the Challenges (Sept. 18, 2012) (full-text).

Overview
The ACCC found that previous controls &mdash; including industry self-regulation and some investigation into specific merchants &mdash; were not effective in reducing cramming. To address the problem, Australian authorities increased consumer education, brought enforcement actions, and worked closely with industry on adopting a set of regulations to protect consumers, which the ACCC noted was a "crucial component of providing a long-term solution to the problem." Those regulations included, for example, requiring that carriers offer a block on Premium SMS services to consumers. After taking these steps, Australian authorities reported that the number of consumer complaints in Australia about cramming dropped significantly.

Source

 * Mobile Cramming: A Federal Trade Commission Staff Report, at 19.