The Internet Service Providers' Association (ISPA) has reported optimistic levels of compliance by its members, following what it says was a year of “great progress”.
SA's Internet industry body recently reported to the Department of Communications (DOC) that “virtually all” of its members achieved full compliance with the ISPA code of conduct last year. This formed part of the organisation's annual report on its code of conduct, presented to the communications minister Dina Pule last month.
Co-chairperson of ISPA Marc Furman says one of the key success factors to 2011 being a year of progress was the organisation's code of conduct wizard. Launched in late 2008, the wizard provides a Web-based interface that ISPA members can use to verify their compliance with the code.
In addition to this, says ISPA, in a bid to drive compliance levels, it introduced a new category of provisional membership during 2011. “New members are placed in this category until they achieve full compliance. During this period, they are not eligible to receive any of the benefits ISPA provides to its members, other than the support needed to become compliant.”
Furman says this strategy helped to “reduce number of applicants who apply for ISPA membership, but who are unwilling to invest the time necessary to comply with ISPA's code of conduct”.
Consumer complaints
ISPA says it dealt with 103 complaints related to its members during 2011, of which 85 were accepted. Of these, 39 related to member compliance with the code of conduct, while the rest related to service levels and customer support (14), billing disputes (14), spam (8), domain names (8), copyright (1) and security (1).
“Fifty-one complaints were resolved amicably, while a further 12 appear to have been informally resolved. Ten complaints went to independent adjudication, and 11 were withdrawn (nine of them because the ISP's membership of ISPA was cancelled). One complaint is still in process.”
In its report to Pule, ISPA also noted that it dealt with 98 take-down notifications with respect to content on sites hosted by ISPA members. Of these, 29 were disallowed, while the remaining 69 were passed on to the relevant members.
In respect of 54 notices, the content was removed, while the ISP in question rejected seven. Four notices were withdrawn by the complainant. The ISP was unable to comply with the take-down request in four instances, owing to the content provider changing to a hosting provider that was not a member of ISPA.
“We believe the record shows that ISPA provides an effective way for consumers to escalate disputes with ISPA members, and that the take-down notice process can resolve the problem of unlawful content,” says Furman. He concludes that the association is also engaging with the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa to create a co-ordinated approach to dealing with consumer complaints.
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