Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) in its efforts to protect consumers from the adverse effects of competition between telecom organizations has prepared Deceptive Marketing Guidelines to provide guidance in respect of the Section 10 of the Competition Act, 2010. The guidelines will apply to the products and services of the telecommunications industry in Pakistan. The drafted guidelines will be implementable on sales, marketing, advertising, and communication in all forms across all mediums, online and Point of Sale (PoS) for all the telecom companies.
The guidelines have been formulated after long study of the practices followed by other countries, the situation in our own country and the dynamics of the market in our region. Despite the fact that the guidelines will differ on case to case basis, essence of the basic postulates remain concurrent, like distribution of false information, deception, fine print, disclaimer and qualifications, importance of substantiation of claims and essential terms and conditions etc. Such practices are also associated with legal implication and should be carefully treaded upon.
As admitted by the Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP), the Deceptive Marketing Guidelines are not exhaustive but will be improved on a time to time basis. This means that the even if the draft guidelines are finalized and approved, they will keep changing over the time. Hopefully they will keep changing for the good.
A commendable step by CCP.