Telemedia Month September

Issue 42 • SEPTEMBER 2013

#PRS Misleading affiliate marketing set to rock the telemedia industry

THIS MONTH... News

• Rory Maguire appointed MD of AIME 3 • Dialogue adds Payforit to TablePouncer app 4 • Contactless NFC payments come to Iceland to cut queues 4 • BBFC takes over classification of mobile content 5 • PayPal brings ‘pay by face’ to Richmond in UK trial 6 • Online dating booms in UK, with Polish dates hitting top spot 8 • Digital Select revamps SMS platform and gets BT interconnects 9 • M-commerce doubles in a year finds IMRG-CapGemini 10 • Blippar uses AR to give Lads’ mags the “breast of both worlds” 11 • txtNation signs interconnect deal with Swisscom 11 • ImpulsePay to use C3 Fusion for Payforit call handling 12

Analysis despite some much needed xMany aggregators and service providers have been plunged into confusion over the summer as problems around affiliate marketing for services have landed firmly at their doorstep, with regulator Phonepay Plus warning them that they have to know if any affiliates marketing services for their clients are scamming consumers. Fines have already been issued and other legal proceedings are on going as we go to press, Telemedia-month has learned. The problem centres around service being marketed through smaller affiliates and individuals who are using the opportunity to offer prizes in return for sign ups to subs services that often turn out not to exist – without the knowledge of the service provider or the aggregator. However, these L2 and L1 companies are being held responsible. There is also the growing problem of individuals acting as de facto affiliates on sites such as Facebook, where they are offering fake promos and luring consumers unwittingly into subscription services. The problem has been further compounded by PPP discovering that malware from Russia called Ransomware has also seen a rise in online affiliate scams and a huge number of complaints to the regulator from consumers. In this instance, PPP’s monitoring evidenced affiliate marketing that appeared to utilise a form of malware known as ransomware to lock consumers’ internet browsers and force them to interact with online offers which directed them to the Level 2 provider, Greenwhale Holding “Funlodia” subscription services. Industry trade body AIME is concerned that with PPP issuing fines and looking into the affiliate marketing issue, many aggregators are going to be forced to abandon affiliate marketing as it is impossible to cost effectively track all of them on such tight margins. PPP has issued guidance notes on affiliates and recognizes that the problem of tracking what is happening to traffic. In it, it said: “The advantage for PRS providers in using affiliates can be two-fold. Firstly, they can gain access to marketing tools and techniques that they may not have in house. Secondly, because affiliates are paid on a performance basis, the

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