The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

ICSTIS tells sex lines to clean up their act

Warns on warnings

Free whitepaper – Blade learning lab and technical community

UK premium-rate regulator ICSTIS has told sex lines to clean up their act by 31 August or face sanction.

The warning comes in response to complaints from the public that some services are launching directly into salacious content, without the required warnings, while others are leaving frustrated punters on hold.

Recorded sex lines must remind callers to be over 18, and that the service name will appear on their phone bill. Live sex lines additionally need to say how much the call costs, the name of the company running the service, as well as stating that all calls are recorded.

Companies have until the end of August to make sure those warnings are in place, and no more: some services have been using lengthy warnings to keep punters waiting, while pretending it's their legal responsibility.

Quite why sex lines deserve such a warning when breaches could be addressed immediately is unclear. ICSTIS couldn't be reached for comment. ®

Free whitepaper – Dell solid state disk (SSD) drives

Don’t Miss

DustbinDirty, dirty PCs: The X-rated picture guide

Ventblockers Horror beyond human imagination

SC09Top 500 supers - rise of the Linux quad-cores

SC09 Jaguar munches Roadrunner

Ubuntu teaser Early adopters bloodied by Ubuntu's Karmic Koala

Smooth Windows upgrade it ain't

Sign up, sign up for The Register IT security newsletter

Narrowcasting for the email classes