Business broadband ISP and managed service provider Equity Networks has recently become the latest company in a growing list to irritate some of their UK customers, which it did by automatically adding a paid (£12.99 a month) internet security feature – ‘SafeWeb’ – to their accounts, without first getting explicit consent.
Over the past few weeks’ we’ve reported on how both Onetsream (here) and Daisy Communications (here) have managed to attract the ire of their customers by adding an extra paid service to their accounts without first gaining express consent. Consumer laws expressly forbid this behaviour (e.g. “inertia selling“), but it can be a bit more of a grey area when it comes to businesses (B2B doesn’t enjoy the same protections).
Nevertheless, basic business ethics usually helps to ensure that companies play fair with each other, although that isn’t always the case. In the latest example, Equity Networks’ small business customers recently received an email to let them know that they’d partnered up with SafeWeb to “provide you with enhanced protection and data loss prevention capabilities“. Sounds good, except of course there’s a catch.
The service came in an “active” state as part of a 30-day free trial, but “after your trial the service will automatically continue for just £12.99 per domain, per month” and to avoid this you’d have to manually email the provider to request an opt-out. So it’s hard luck if you innocently overlooked the email, assuming it to be just another one of those disposable and unsolicited promotional spams that are so common these days.
Copy of the Equity Networks Email
One of the those affected by this appears to be taking a consumer-grade FTTC broadband line to supply their small business connection, but as this is still a B2B relationship then there aren’t many direct protections in place to prevent the behaviour. A spokesperson for Ofcom told ISPreview: “In these circumstances, the customer would need to raise their concerns directly with the company” (or a court of law, but hopefully no disputes go that far).
Generally speaking, business customers are highly unlikely to appreciate having extra paid services tacked on to their package without first gaining their consent and will probably, when the time comes, respond by voting with their feet. We did email Equity Networks on Wednesday to ask for their thoughts on this kind of offer, but the provider hasn’t responded.
None of this is to say that SafeWeb itself is a bad service, in fact it could be brilliant, but this is perhaps not the best way of introducing it.