Phonepay Plus, the mobile phone’s industry watchdog in the UK, has urged over 4000 schools to join their “Phone Brain” initiative. The initiative’s aim is to see children across Britain taught how to avoid scams and hidden charges that have polluted the mobile phone ringtone industry for so long.
The Phone Brain initiative is also supported by the Ministry of Sound record label as well as the Peter Jones Foundation, founded by Peter Jones of Dragons’ Den fame.
The initiative have created a lesson on ringtones for the national curriculum in the hope that it will ensure teenagers double check the small print before downloading commercial ringtones.
In my opinion the whole industry needs to be reviewed. I’ve heard some awful stories about the scams some ringtone companies inflict on children and teenagers worldwide – hopefully this helps, at least on an awareness level.
I am glad that this has been addressed, because I discussed in a blog post how I believe the European commision had done so little about the problem ( http://tr.im/17pk).
http://img230.imageshack.us/my.php?image=weirdhz6.png
A banner above this comment are promoting to buy ringtones…
Zee, I’m glad you want the industry cleaned up, but I should point out that PhoneBrain is run by PhonepayPlus (formerly ICSTIS) and they do NOT have the interests of the consumer at heart.
The board of PhonepayPlus is a Who’s Who list in the PRS (premium rate services) industry. It’s self regulated and, as such, not in the interests of the ‘regulator’ to truly crack down on fraud/bad practice.
This new initiative actually encourages children to use PRS and defends the industry by saying it’s only a few companies that behave badly despite what the children may have read in the press. They tell children that PRS is good for the UK economy as well. Tell that to the poor kids that end up having no credit due to unsolicited premium messages being sent to their phone.
I’ve downloaded the lesson packs and seen PP+ attempt to use someone they’ve actually fined for breaches as a role model for kids.
Anyway, as you can tell this is something I feel strongly about and I appreciate that you’ve read it this far.