Campaign Guidance - Belgium - Proximus Compliance Requirements
Belgium - Proximus Compliance Requirements
This compliance matrix will help you meet the expectations of Proximus on behalf of their customers. Payment flows that deviate from these rules are not allowed, unless specifically agreed by Empello who will examine the potential consumer impact of the revised flow.
Proximus is issuing the following checklist to Empello for their severity assessment when they encounter compliance issues. This is an interim checklist. Proximus reserves the right to change or add items at any time.
This Matrix is an additional set of rules to the GOF Guidelines for DCB and PSMS services. The GOF Guidelines always take precedence over this Matrix, also in the event of any inconsistency and/or incompleteness.
Breach severity assessment - Marketing flows and service operation
| Issue | Severity |
| Adult service promoted in non-adult site Media that regularly carries promotions (banners, links, postings) to commercial (not free) adult services may be used for adult Value Added Services (VAS) so long as the whole journey from the publisher site to the Value Added Service (VAS) is not misleading. Examples of misleading include postings saying "free", "hook up tonight" "I'm just 2km from you" - the original link and the subsequent journey must relate to a paid-for adult Video On Demand (VOD) service. A banner marked 16+ is not acceptable for an 18+ service. |
Red |
| “Passing off” by using big brand logos etc. Red if brand is associated with a lie (i.e. Google and a pre-lander stating 27 viruses discovered). Yellow if the merchant is using a retailer’s brand without permission for a sweepstake for a voucher from the retailer. |
Yellow or Red |
| Misleading service operation – “click training” Prepayment pages served that look like payment pages, to desensitise the consumer of the nature of the payment pages. |
Yellow |
| Being on content locking site – “incentivized traffic” Content lockers offer a product in return for subscribing to a VAS service. The original offer is never delivered. Content lockers are always misleading. Red if the offer is illegal e.g. PayPal hack offer. Yellow if not an illegal offer e.g. Pokemon Go coins. |
Yellow or Red |
| Iframe masking / overlay. Code stuffing. Illegal techniques to cause consumers to be subscribed without ever having pressed compliant payment buttons. The most severe example of charging without consent. |
Red |
| Price not proximate to Call To Action (CTA) Until the launch of Proximus-hosted payment pages, other parties control the layout of these pages. The price needs to be close to the Call to Action (CTA) button – immediately above or below, the price must be stand-alone, clearly separated from the other terms and conditions and visible without scrolling. |
Yellow |
| Price not prominent The price must be displayed in an easily-legible font size and a high colour contrast against the background. |
Red |
| Compliance with EU Consumer Contract Regulations The CTA must be labelled with words that state an “unambiguous obligation to pay” i.e. Buy Now, Subscribe Now and NOT Next or Continue. ‘I subscribe’, ‘I accept’ or ‘I confirm’ can also be used. In case of a one-off payment where a subscription is not in order, alternative wording such as ‘Bestel nu’ and ‘Koop nu’or ‘Betalen’ are allowed. It still should be unambiguously clear that a payment is in order. |
Yellow |
| Price incorrect / charge different from the promotion The service actually charges more than the promotion states. Apart from the obvious overcharging, this includes a service that states €3.99 per week, but in particular circumstances can have more than one €3.99 charge in any one 7 day period. The price of subscription for DCB should be a maximum of €5 per week. The price for PSMS should have a maximum of €6 per week. |
Yellow |
| Colour CTA button The colour of the first and second CTA button should be different colours. Contrast Ratio is determined by WCAG 2.0 guidelines - http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/ and tested using typical online tools such as http://www.msfw.com/Services/ContrastRatioCalculator across a two step payment process, the two buttons must be a different colour to each other with a minimum contrast ratio of 2:1. |
Yellow |
| Compliance test Empello All services should be tested and approved by Empello. When the layout of the payment pages are being modified over time, it has to be approved by Empello as well. |
Yellow |
| Charging without consent This includes any service where there is inadequate evidence that the consumer did opt-in to a service. |
Red |
| Not following subscription, receipts and reminder rules Includes the proper functioning of the STOP command, which must take immediate effect under all circumstances. |
Red |
| Promoting in media that is particularly attractive to kids Merchants who evidently have no process in place to deal with Google AdWords filter failures will be Red Carded and expected to adopt best practice techniques to reduce the risk of being promoted in a kids app. |
Yellow or Red |
| Missing merchant name and / or contact details from the payment page. Complete Terms and Conditions may be displayed, or a link to a separate page. |
Yellow |
| No dedicated short code for marketing and STOP Each aggregator must have at least one short code dedicated to all marketing SMS. Larger merchants are strongly encouraged to have their own marketing short code. The STOP destination short code must be the marketing short code. |
Yellow |
| Some generic banners misleading Generic affiliate banners, such as “Play / download” are not deemed misleading. However, these generic banners must not make a misleading claim, such as “free”. |
Yellow |
| Use of language appropriate to Belgium Best practice is to serve pages in English, Dutch or French according to the phone settings. If not followed, a language selection option is required on the landing page. It is not acceptable for the language to change in the pages controlled by the Content Provider. The content of the service is allowed to be in either French, Dutch (preferable) or English (or any European language). Payment pages and other links on the landing pages are required to have a language selection option between French and Dutch. In case of content that is only offered in one language there needs to be a disclaimer on the landing pages stating that the content is in another language. |
Yellow |
| PSMS Flows Price prominence/proximity as per current DCB rules on each payment page. Shortcode received should be the same as the shortcode to stop. The keyword on a dedicated shortcode should always be GO, START or OK (As described in the GOF Guidelines of SMS/MSS). MO - Manual SMS entry: Keyword in activation SMS must include the word ‘subscribe’. Pricing in the same area/graphical box as the CTA. MO - Pre-populated Activation SMS must include subscribe and price: ‘I agree to subscribe to Service X for €X per week. |
Yellow |
| Single Purchase Flows Price prominence/proximity as per current DCB rules on each payment page (as PSMS flows). Short code received should be the same as the short code to stop. The keyword on a dedicated short code should always be GO, START or OK. |
Yellow |
| 24 Hour free trial period All services (current and new services) on the Proximus network should have a 24 hour free trial period. This should be implemented and checked by Empello. Users can only subscribe once for the 24 hour free trial period. When an end user unsubscribes and subscribes again, the user is charged directly. The correct subscription confirmation message can be found below in English, French and Dutch. For new users, the second 24 hour trial SMS can be used. For current users the first SMS can be used. |
Yellow |
Subscription Confirmation Message
FR - Message gratuit de DDD: vous êtes abonné à un Service de NNNN à xx euros/PPP. 24H GRATUIT. Pour y mettre fin: respondre SSSS ou appelez le 0X/XXX XX XX EN - Free message from DDDD: you are subscribed to the Service of NNNN at xx euro/PPP. 24H FREE. To unsubscribe: send SSSS or call 0X/XXX XX XX
FR - 24H gratuites ont expiré. Vous êtes facturé XEUR/semaine et l’accès à SERVICE NAME a été prolongé. Renouvellement automatique. Pour arrêter, envoyer STOP EN - 24h free period expired. You have now been charged XEUR/week and the access to the SERVICE NAME has been prolonged. Auto-renewal. To stop, send STOP
FR - Message gratuit de DDD: vous êtes abonné à un Service de NNNN à xx euros/PPP. Pour y mettre fin: respondre SSSS ou appelez le 0X/XXX XX XX EN - Free message from DDDD: you are subscribed to the Service of NNNN at xx euro/PPP. To unsubscribe: send SSSS or call 0X/XXX XX XX |
Yellow (if not complied with standard) |
| For one time billing, the message should state the following: EN - Free SMS: You have payed {price} euro for {service_name}. FR – SMS gratuit: Vous avez payé {price} euro pour {service_name}. NL – Gratis SMS: U hebt {price} euro betaald voor {service_name). |
Yellow (if not complied with standard) |