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In-Market Monitoring and the Mobile Premium Services Industry Code
1. Q. Does the in-market monitoring programme look specifically at all aspects of the Mobile Premium Services (MPS) Industry Code?
Programme Infringement Notices
2. Q. Do both content providers and aggregators receive Programme Infringement Notices?
3. Q. Are separate Programme Infringement Notices issued to a single content provider for the same infringements across each carrier network? If so, is there a way to decrease the amount of input and review required to address the same infringement or infringements across multiple carriers?
4. Q. On what day do aggregators and content providers receive the weekly Programme Infringement Notices? What data do the notices include? How do I navigate the notices?
5. Q. What do the severity levels associated with the infringements listed on Programme Infringement Notices mean?
Responding to Audit Notifications and Programme Infringement Notices
6. Q. Is a response to the original audit notification email required? The advertising will be retested on schedule anyway, so why communicate at all in the interim?
7. Q. Who should reply to the original audit notification email and to the infringement notices—the aggregator or the content provider? Or do we just juggle these responsibilities between ourselves?
8. Q. How do I respond to an infringement notice?
9. Q. What if the original audit notification email goes astray?
10. Q. Do aggregators and content providers have the same level of access to the IMM Portal?
11. Q. How do aggregators know when a content provider has corrected an infringement?
12. Q. As an aggregator, if one of my content providers has already responded to an audit, will I be able to see that response via the IMM Portal?
13. Q. What happens when a content provider is unable to resolve an infringement by the cure date on an infringement notice (e.g., the infringement occurs in a magazine ad or TV commercial)?
14. Q. Do content providers respond in the same way to a Programme Infringement Notice for a message flow audit as they do for an advertising audit?
Infringements
15. Q. Why have I received more than one infringement notice within a single month for a print ad on my shortcode?
16. Q. Why did I receive a Programme Infringement Notice in which an ad for a chat service was cited for "unclear opt-out information"? The opt-out information—"send STOP to cancel"—was perfectly clear and the Mobile Premium Services (MPS) Industry Code does not require non-subscription services to display opt-out information.
Enforcement Process
17. Q. How does "enforcement activity" work?
18. Q. Sometimes complex issues can be resolved more efficiently and rapidly by phone than by email. Does the PSMS Industry Monitor Compliance Team have a Helpline that I may call for assistance in such cases?
19. Q. Should content providers disagree with an Optus audit, what recourse do they have?
20. Q. Should content providers disagree with a Telstra audit, what recourse do they have?
21. Q. How do challenges to audits and subsequent escalations affect subsequent audits on the same advertising?
Miscellaneous
22. Q. Will WMC Global offer an additional service whereby content providers can submit advertising material for compliance review before programme launch?
23. Q. How can I obtain information regarding a compliance issue unrelated to a particular infringement or audit?
24. Q. Shortcodes can move among content providers managed by a single aggregator, or they might even move among aggregators. What processes exist for updating shortcode listings for each aggregator and for updating content provider shortcodes and email addresses?
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In-Market Monitoring and the Mobile Premium Services Industry Code
1. Q. Does the in-market monitoring programme look specifically at all aspects of the Mobile Premium Services (MPS) Industry Code? Or does it focus on particular components or hotpoints?
A. First and foremost, the in-market monitoring programme is evaluating mobile premium services and associated advertising and message flows against Optus and Telstra’s own advertising and message flow audit standards. In developing their audit standards, both carriers have drawn on the MPS Industry Code rules and their own specific requirements. Where audits are concerned, the individual carriers’ interpretations of the Industry Code take precedence. It is imperative that content providers, when operating any mobile premium service, observe the spirit as well as the letter of all applicable laws, regulations, standards, content requirements, and industry codes of conduct in relation to their promotion, including the:
- Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cth),
- Privacy Act 1998 (Cth),
- Broadcasting Services Act 1992 (Cth),
- Telecommunications Act 1997 (Cth),
- Interactive Gambling Act 2001 (Cth),
- Spam Act 2003 (Cth),
- Do Not Call Register Act (Cth),
- Content Services Code 2008, and
- MPS Industry Code 2009.
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Programme Infringement Notices
2. Q. Do both content providers and aggregators receive Programme Infringement Notices?
A. Where WMC Global detects breaches of the audit standards, both the content provider and the relevant aggregator receive a compliance notification via email containing a URL link or links to their infringement notices.
3. Q. Are separate Programme Infringement Notices issued to a single content provider for the same infringements across each carrier network? If so, is there a way to decrease the amount of input and review required to address the same infringement or infringements across multiple carriers?
A. Yes, on behalf of each carrier, separate infringement notices with URL links are issued in a compliance notification email message, and a separate response to each via the PSMS Industry Monitor ticketing system is required (content providers may simply copy and paste the same response, if appropriate, into the email chain for the second carrier). However, when a content provider has corrected an infringement that occurs on the same advertising and shortcode across multiple carrier networks, the content provider can save time and effort for everyone, and speed audit closure, by simply notifying the PSMS Industry Monitor Compliance Team of that fact. The Team then knows which additional audits to retest and can close all of them at once.
4. Q. On what day do aggregators and content providers receive the weekly Programme Infringement Notices? What data do the notices include? How do I navigate the notices?
A. The PSMS Industry Monitor ticketing system issues infringement notices every Tuesday. At the top of the notice is a unique audit number and the shortcode, content provider, aggregator, number of total interceptions, and number of total unique interceptions as well as the notice date and the cure date.
- Consult the notice for a complete list of infringements committed on that shortcode and to learn what the content provider must do to bring the advertising into compliance with the carrier’s audit standards. Below the list of infringements and actions required are thumbnail images of each unique piece of advertising creative on that shortcode captured during the review period. For your convenience, unique creative are organised and numbered in Groups with their duplicates. Therefore, the number of unique creative will correspond directly with the number of groups.
- Click on any thumbnail to view an itemised list of the specific infringements on that individual unique creative and related duplicates, with severity levels and actions required to correct the infringements. Clicking on the thumbnail just above the itemised list will take you to a full-size screenshot or video clip of the creative as it appeared in market on the capture date. For online advertisements, the Intercept Location link will take you to the actual Website where the creative appears.
- Click on the links below the itemised list to view the related duplicate creative. In the event that the unique creative is an affiliate marketer's advertisement, the links below the itemised list will take you, instead, to the content provider’s advertisements to which the unique creative links.
5. Q. What do the severity levels associated with the infringements listed on Programme Infringement Notices mean?
A. The severity levels indicate the seriousness of the infringement and the amount of time, from the notice date, that the carrier allows the content provider to correct the infringement. Both Optus and Telstra allow two business days for severity 1 infringements to be corrected, five business days for severity 2 infringements, and seven business days for severity 3 infringements.
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Responding to Audit Notifications and Programme Infringement Notices
6. Q. Is a response to the original audit notification email required? The advertising will be retested on schedule anyway, so why communicate at all in the interim?
A. Aggregators and content providers must respond to the original audit notification email sent by the PSMS Industry Monitor Compliance Team. Moreover, alerting the Compliance Team to the fact that infringements in advertising have been resolved benefits the content provider in that the audit or audits may be closed immediately instead of in the next review cycle.
7. Q. Who should reply to the original audit notification email and to the infringement notices—the aggregator or the content provider? Or do we just juggle these responsibilities between ourselves?
A. Ensuring content provider compliance on the Optus and Telstra networks is the aggregator’s responsibility, but the content provider owns the advertising that has been cited for infringements. The two of you must decide together who will communicate with the PSMS Industry Monitor Compliance Team regarding audits and then follow through to correct the infringements.
8. Q. How do I respond to an infringement notice?
A. Aggregators and content providers simply reply to the email they receive from the PSMS Industry Monitor ticketing system, maintaining the subject line of the original audit notification email. Email sent to this address without the correct subject line is routed incorrectly. Aggregators can also access the IMM Portal to respond to an infringement notice directly.
9. Q. What if the original audit notification email goes astray?
A. If the original audit notification email is lost, aggregators and content providers can send a message to support.au@psmsindustrymonitor.com detailing the infringement, and the PSMS Industry Monitor Compliance Team will resend the original email. Aggregators can also access the IMM Portal to respond to an infringement notice directly.
10. Q. Do aggregators and content providers have the same level of access to the IMM Portal?
A. Aggregators can log into the IMM Portal directly and view all infringements on shortcodes associated with the content providers they manage. Content providers also can log into the portal but only to view their own audit information. They access the details of their shortcode infringements by clicking the URL link or links in the compliance notification email, entering their unique username and password when prompted, and clicking on the appropriate thumbnail images and links in the infringement notice, which will take them to the relevant section of the portal or to the Internet.
11. Q. How do aggregators know when a content provider has corrected an infringement?
A. Aggregators receive an email message from the PSMS Industry Monitor ticketing system notifying them that the audit has been closed at the same time the content provider and the carrier receive that message.
12. Q. As an aggregator, if one of my content providers has already responded to an audit, will I be able to see that response via the IMM Portal?
A. Yes. Simply access the portal with your unique username and password; enter the desired date range; select the appropriate audit status (e.g., open, pending retest, closed) and relevant content provider or shortcode from the dropdown menus; and click the Search button. When your data comes up, click the Open, Pending Retest, Escalated, Closed, or Withdrawn link associated with your content provider or the shortcode in the Status column. You’ll see the complete message chain, including all enforcement communications the content provider might have exchanged with the PSMS Industry Monitor Compliance Team. In addition, aggregators can join the message chain here, sending their own communications regarding the audit.
13. Q. What happens when a content provider is unable to resolve an infringement by the cure date on an infringement notice (e.g., the infringement occurs in a magazine ad or TV commercial)?
A. Optus and Telstra understand that media such as print and TV have a longer run cycle and, therefore, advertising in these media cannot be remedied as quickly and easily as online advertising. In such cases, the content provider should advise the PSMS Industry Monitor Compliance Team of the “reasonable estimated fix date” and submit, within 30 days of receiving the infringement notice, a JPG file or video clip of the corrected ad. On receiving an in-market fix date as well as a corrected JPG or video clip that brings the ad into compliance, the Team will close the audit. However, the Team subsequently will retest on the fix date to confirm the ad in market matches the approved creative. Ads intercepted in market on the fix date that fail to match the approved creative and, hence, fail to pass the retest will be escalated immediately to the carriers.
14. Q. Do content providers respond in the same way to a Programme Infringement Notice for a message flow audit as they do for an advertising audit?
A. Responding to a message flow infringement notice is similar to responding to an infringement notice for a print or TV ad. In preparation for retesting message flows, content providers must reply to the infringement notice with a complete message copy of their corrected flow. An enforcement specialist reviews the copy for corrections. Only message flows that have been determined to be compliant in the copy are actually retested live in preparation for closing the audit, as appropriate. When the flow copy submitted is still noncompliant, the enforcement specialist advises the content provider via the ticketing system that infringements remain. Please note that no message flow is retested live unless the PSMS Industry Monitor Compliance Team receives a complete message flow log that it can first verify is compliant.
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Infringements
15. Q. Why have I received more than one infringement notice within a single month for a print ad on my shortcode?
A. Print ads that appear in daily newspapers, for example, or weekly magazines will be audited more frequently. Because they often change from week to week, ads in these publications can be audited for the same shortcode on a weekly basis. This practice is no different than intercepting and auditing any ad that displays different keywords on the same shortcode in the same month.
16. Q. Why did I receive a Programme Infringement Notice in which an ad for a chat service was cited for "unclear opt-out information"? The opt-out information—"send STOP to cancel"—was perfectly clear and the Mobile Premium Services (MPS) Industry Code does not require non-subscription services to display opt-out information.
A. Optus and Telstra concur with the MPS Industry Code that "a Content Supplier must ensure that advertisements for Mobile Premium Services are not confusing, misleading, or deceptive, having regard to the intended audience." Although an experienced user probably would understand "send STOP to cancel," the majority of customers new to mobile premium services almost certainly would be confused. The carriers require that content providers consider their entire audience when communicating an offer. The action required to correct this infringement is "Associate opt-out command with shortcode and preface with Send, Text, SMS, or Reply (e.g., Send STOP to 19XXXX)." When an ad for any product or service displays any basic disclosure (e.g., pricing, subscription disclosure, charge period, opt-out information) in a way that is confusing, misleading, or deceptive, it will be subject to citation.
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Enforcement Process
17. Q. How does "enforcement activity" work?
A. The term "enforcement activity" simply refers to the process by which the PSMS Industry Monitor Compliance Team works with aggregators and content providers to help them resolve outstanding audits by the noted cure date. On receipt of Programme Infringement Notices, content providers who have concerns may engage in Q&A with the Compliance Team. Questions may be submitted by replying to the ticket. The reply, which must preserve the ticket subject field, should pose specific questions or outline issues relating to the cited infringements (noting unique document number and shortcode) and contain the screenshot of the interception on which the query is based.
Content providers and aggregators should appreciate that Q&A is a courtesy extended to them solely for the purpose of entertaining good faith questions and helping them understand how they may bring their advertising into compliance. The PSMS Industry Monitor ticketing system, support email, and telephone support are not a venue for arguing about the Mobile Premium Service (MPS) Industry Code or carrier audit standards or for winding down the clock. Therefore, users of the ticketing system should refrain from pasting sections of the MPS Code into, or attaching documents to, email.
The Compliance Team responds to content provider concerns based strictly on the actions carriers require to correct any given published infringement. The Team is unable to address creative design issues, for example, or offer advice on how to lay out a Webpage so it would meet requirements for placement of critical information such as pricing and subscription disclosure. Nor will the carriers or the Team review and approve revised advertising creative. Ultimately, aggregators retain responsibility for engaging with the content providers they manage to resolve audits. The only audits escalated to carriers are audits that remain unresolved by the cure date or, in the case of print and TV advertising, by the reasonable estimated fix date.
18. Q. Sometimes complex issues can be resolved more efficiently and rapidly by phone than by email. Does the PSMS Industry Monitor Compliance Team have a Helpline that I may call for assistance in such cases?
A. You may speak to a member of the PSMS Industry Monitor Compliance Team at the Support Desk by calling +61 (0)2 9959 1010 during normal business hours, 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. AEST, Monday through Friday.
19. Q. Should content providers disagree with an Optus audit, what recourse do they have?
A. Each carrier maintains its own policy for audit challenges and escalation. Content providers who feel they have a legitimate claim may challenge an Optus audit by responding appropriately to compliance@psmsindustrymonitor.com within 48 hours of receiving a Programme Violation Notice. The email message should state explicitly why the content provider deems the audit incorrect and should include proof to validate this claim. The PSMS Industry Monitor Compliance Team assumes primary responsibility for handling such challenges as it does for compliance monitoring and routine enforcement. When necessary, the Compliance Team engages Optus management personnel to resolve issues, but explanations the Team provides govern the process. Content providers dissatisfied with the outcome of their challenge may appeal their case to Optus. In such cases, the aggregator, within seven days of the challenge denial, must advise the Compliance Team formally of the content provider’s wish to appeal via compliance@psmsindustrymonitor.com. The Compliance Team will forward to Optus the dispute details. The outcome of the appeals process will be validated on a per-creative basis at Optus’ discretion. Within five business days of receiving the dispute details, Optus will issue a final ruling, either upholding or denying the appeal. The descriptor "appeal valid" indicates that Optus deems the content provider’s claim legitimate and that the relevant infringement or infringements are removed from the audit. "Appeal denied" indicates that Optus has rejected the claim as unsubstantiated and that the prescribed penalty applies.
20. Q. Should content providers disagree with a Telstra audit, what recourse do they have?
A. Each carrier maintains its own policy for audit challenges and escalation. Content providers who feel they have a legitimate claim may challenge a Telstra audit, as well, by responding appropriately to compliance@psmsindustrymonitor.com within 48 hours of receiving a Programme Violation Notice. The email message should state explicitly why the content provider deems the audit incorrect and should include proof to validate this claim. The PSMS Industry Monitor Compliance Team assumes primary responsibility for handling such challenges as it does for compliance monitoring and routine enforcement. Per Telstra policy, the Compliance Team will review the audit challenge to determine whether mitigating circumstances might apply. Should the Team find that the challenge is invalid, it will notify the content provider that the audit is upheld and that the infringement or infringements must be corrected without further delay. If, however, the Team believes the content provider has presented a valid case, it will forward to Telstra the dispute details. The outcome of the appeals process will be validated on a per-creative basis at Telstra’s discretion. Within five business days of receiving the dispute details, Telstra will issue a final ruling, either upholding or denying the appeal.
21. Q. How do challenges to audits and subsequent escalations affect subsequent audits on the same advertising?
A. The PSMS Industry Monitor ticketing system continues to issue infringement notices on outstanding audits; but Optus and Telstra determine the nature of penalties and whether and when they are applied.
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Miscellaneous
22. Q. Will WMC Global offer an additional service whereby content providers can submit advertising material for compliance review before programme launch?
A. No, WMC Global currently is not in a position to provide this service.
23. Q. How can I obtain information regarding a compliance issue unrelated to a particular infringement or audit?
A. Compliance queries unrelated to a particular infringement or audit may be emailed to the PSMS Industry Monitor Compliance Team at support.au@psmsindustrymonitor.com. Or, you may speak to a member of the Compliance Team personally at the Support Desk by calling +61 (0)2 9959 1010 during normal business hours, 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. AEST, Monday through Friday.
24. Q. Shortcodes can move among content providers managed by a single aggregator, or they might even move among aggregators. What processes exist for updating shortcode listings for each aggregator and for updating content provider shortcodes and email addresses?
A. Aggregators and content providers need only email such changes to support.au@psmsindustrymonitor.com, where the PSMS Industry Monitor Compliance Team will incorporate the updates as appropriate. Ultimately, aggregators retain responsibility for seeing that the Compliance Team receives accurate information promptly regarding the content providers they manage (i.e., the shortcodes and email addresses associated with those content providers). The carriers are working gradually, through each of the aggregators, to improve information that has been entered into the PSMS Industry Monitor database. The ultimate goal is to build a master database for the entire industry with accurate, up-to-date information on all shortcodes, managed and accessible
from a centralised location.
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