Council pulls cunning stunt on phone bosses

LONDON (Reuters) - Mobile phone bosses face embarrassment after a London council dished out their phone numbers to the public on mock flyers for prostitutes' services, aiming to prod them into action against rampant advertising by the sex trade.


Westminster City Council has stepped up its long-running campaign to rid phone booths of advertisements for call girls in its borough, which includes Soho, London's red-light district.


It handed out 20,000 cards to passers-by in central London with the names and business numbers of mobile phone company chiefs alongside pictures of scantily clad women, and plans further action in the coming weeks, a councillor said on Friday.


The council wants the companies to bar incoming calls to numbers found on call girl advertisements, arguing that this would hamper the sex trade and cut related crimes.


Chief executives targeted for ridicule by the council included Vodafone's Arun Sarin, Orange's Sanjiv Ahuja, 3 UK's Bob Fuller, NTL's Simon Duffy and O2 UK's Dave McGlade.


Telewest Chief Executive Barry Elson and T-Mobile UK Managing Director Brian McBride were also named.


"We are serious about combating this affront to public decency and cutting down on the cost to tax payers," said Kit Malthouse, deputy leader of the council.


"We are trying to cut off the oxygen of free ads, at no cost to mobile phone companies involved."


The council has worked with police to battle the advertisers, including two operations that led to the arrest of 79 people for offences such as placing cards in phone booths, but the problem remains widespread.


MOBILE OPERATORS TAKE ISSUE


The council estimates that a couple of million cards are removed from Westminster phone booths every year at a cost of about a quarter of a million pounds to the tax payer.


It also cites a drop in BT phone numbers used in call girls' advertisements, after the country's top fixed-line phone company began blocking calls to such numbers in 2001, as evidence that a bar would work.


The proportion of BT numbers featured on the cards fell from 98 percent to just 5 percent as a result. To date, BT has received no complaints or challenges against the policy, the council said.


Many of the mobile phone companies took issue with the council, however, arguing that a bar on phone calls would simply spur prostitutes to switch to pay-as-you-go phones.


"We feel that there is no justification for cutting the phone lines of prostitutes that advertise using cards in public phone boxes," an O2 spokesman said.


The companies were concerned about data privacy protection and the risk that pranksters could use the policy to get numbers blocked that have no link to prostitution.


Some also felt the issue was not their responsibility and was best dealt with by the police and the council.


The mobile firms could also be held in breach of contract by disconnecting clients without proof the numbers were being used for criminal activity.


"Vodafone does not normally get involved in the judgement of the content or nature of calls, or with interpreting the legality of issues that are the territory of the law enforcement authorities," a Vodafone spokeswoman said.


NTL added: "The offence occurs when the telephone number is advertised, not when it is issued by a telecoms operator to an individual."


The council countered that the laws of economics were on its side.


"The economics of the cards mean a bar would work. Organised gangs print cards in bulk and each number could be a link to as many as 80 to 90 prostitutes and a bar would make them worthless.


"Pimps value these numbers highly because they are key to repeat business. Porting numbers to other phones means they may lose loyal customers," said Malthouse.

link : http://uk.news.yahoo.com/040827/80/f1dn1.html