STOP Wipes Out 25% Of UK Mobile Content Market

The current Mobile Entertainment Magazine has a piece about how mobile content operators have taken a £125,000,000 hit since the introduction of the universal STOP command.

To recap, the STOP command was brought in so anyone receiving mobile content via premium SMS or MMS can just text the word "STOP" to the number the content is coming from to cancel the subscription to the service sending it. The service must also send out a reminder at the end of each month, or after £20 has been spent, whichever is sooner.

For a market worth £500,000,000, that's a drop of 25%, and shows just how many people have inadvertantly signed up for services they don't want.

The worst offenders seem to be the ringtone operators who offer subscription services but offer the first few ringtones for free, then tieing the user into a minimum subscription period at full price. In the US Jamster is being sued for misleading practice for using this very method to catch unwary consumers.