Four Greek phone companies are facing charges of harboring a criminal and withholding information after failing to supply a prosecutor with details of customers alleged to have sent threatening or disparaging messages to other users by text message or in blogs.

Prosecutor Yiannis Sakellakos took action against OTE, Hellas Online, Tellas and Forthnet a few days after similar charges were lodged against Cosmote.

According to sources, the same prosecutor is also considering bringing charges against the Communications Privacy Protection Authority (ADAE) for having advised Cosmote and the fixed-line telecoms firms against providing the prosecutor with customers’ details, as this would constitute a violation of privacy rights.