Commission Affirms Telecom Companies Must Use Measurable Terms in Their Offers and Advertisements

The Communications and Information Technology Commission affirmed to telecom service providers in the Kingdom the obligation to adhere to accuracy and clarity when presenting offers to subscribers, stressing that "any service provider that uses unclear or misleading terms in its promotional advertisements will bear full responsibility before the Commission and will be referred to the Committee for Consideration of Telecom Violations in the Kingdom."

The Commission warned service providers against using terms such as "free" or "unlimited" and similar wording unless the offer or package genuinely includes this without any limit or cap, stressing in this context that each company must make the subscriber fully aware before subscribing to the service, by clearly clarifying the service provided to them, whether by specifying it in terms of a number of minutes, a data volume, or a measured speed.

The Commission also stressed that companies must not use unclear descriptions such as ("unlimited, subject to a fair use policy") or ("free, subject to a fair use policy"), and must clarify the offer using measurable quantities.

The Commission calls on all subscribers to make sure they read the offers presented by companies before subscribing to them, and urges any subscriber who finds unclear advertisements for promotional offers presented by a licensed telecom company to report this through the complaints page on the Commission's website www.cst.gov.sa, so that the Commission may take the regulatory action against the violating companies.

The Commission clarified that subscribers should not pay attention to promotional offers presented by companies over the phone unless these offers are published on the company's website and written clearly.