Updated Guidance on Promoting premium rate services

Updated Guidance on Promoting premium rate services

PhonepayPlus today publishes Guidance on Promoting premium rate services. This is the latest in a range of Guidance that PhonepayPlus has produced to help providers of premium rate services (PRS) understand the standards set under the 13^th Code of Practice.

The rules set out in PhonepayPlus' Code cover a range of different elements around promotion. The Guidance assists Network operators and providers of premium rate services (PRS) when creating and using promotional material and / or assessing the quality of third party promotional material for PRS prior to its use.

can be found herePromoting premium rate servicesPhonepayPlus’ Guidance Note on .


Freemium advertising models

Section 5 of this Guidance Note outlines PhonepayPlus’ expectations for transparency of key terms including cost information, where freemium models are developed or promotional material uses words such as ‘free’ to attract new consumers. It includes information for providers who wish to use freemium advertising to promote premium value products paid for by premium rate services such as operator billing transactions.

This Guidance on freemium models is informed by improvements which industry suggested in response to PhonepayPlus’ consultation on draft Guidance earlier this year and a further round of stakeholder input which the regulator announced on 1 July 2015.

Charity fundraising

This Guidance also includes a section on ‘Fundraising for charity using premium rate services’, which re-publishes advice previously included in the Fundraising and Charitable Donations Guidance under the previous 12^th Code of Practice.

Charities are reminded of the Notice of Special conditions for Recurring Donation Services (RDS), which was published on 1 July 2015 and contains requirements for such services.

If you have any queries regarding this Guidance or another compliance issue please email the team on compliance@phonepayplus.org.uk