Internetq Poland, the organiser of a popular text message
lottery called "Empty Text Message", is the subject of
new proceedings by Polish Anti-Monopoly Office (UOKiK). UOKiK will
check whether the company has used unfair market practice by
sending to participants text messages suggesting that they are
certain to win a prize.
UOKiK is currently conducting proceedings in eight other similar
cases. These resulted from numerous complaints by consumers about
the lotteries, following which UOKiK looked at their terms &
conditions, text message templates, winners' lists and TV &
radio adverts.
UOKiK's opinion is that the adverts suggested that anybody
sending a text message would win a prize whereas, in fact, only a
few winners were drawn by the organiser. In many cases, it was also
unclear how much it would cost the consumer to send a text message
and take part in the lottery. UOKiK also monitors internet pages
offering tests such as IQ checks. In order to receive the
