India’s telecom regulator has finally come up with a new strategy in its response to spam messages and telemarketing calls that seem to have turned into a pandemic relentlessly plaguing Indians. Starting September 1, any entity caught spamming calls and messages will face severe penalties, including disconnection of services and a two-year blacklist from all telecom operators.
Additionally, messages with unapproved links used to spam consumers or distribute malware will also be prohibited, with telecom operators given time till the end of October to strengthen their oversight and traceability.
Whether it will work still remains to be seen, considering how weak and seemingly half-hearted the response to this across-the-board issue has been so far from the government, the regulator, and especially the telecom service providers. Earlier attempts, including those by the government with provisions in the yet-to-be-passed Telecom Bill, to TRAI’s own attempts including a blockchain registration and filtering system, were found to be stillborn.
The result? A new survey released on Wednesday says more than 7 in 10 Indians get at least three or more spam or promotional messages on their mobile phones every day.
“Constant price wars amongst the mobile operators, a lack of seriousness among enterprise senders of unsolicited commercial messages, and constantly evolving tactics among spammers are helping spam continue largely unabated while blocking some genuine messages to customers,” said Sunil David, co-chair (communications working group), IET Future Tech Panel.
That will continue to be an issue. The original TRAI notification was way back in 2018, and except for causing mass commotion in the initial days when a lot of actually required messages — OTPs etc, got filtered out, the filtering system ended up being totally inadequate. The DND or ‘Do Not Disturb’ registry, where those who do not wish to be called, has 22 crore Indians who’ve registered — without any tangible difference in the amount of spam calls and messages they receive.
Couple that with a lack of intent — the Department of Telecom actually introduced a new series for marketing calls some time ago, clearly displaying that consumer privacy and protection takes a back seat in front of the revenue increasing spree of telecom businesses. Already, the players are complaining about the provisions saying they are difficult to implement and would need way more time.
Take for instance one proposal from TRAI’s new consultation paper on the subject. Its solution to the problem is to charge higher rates for anyone who makes more than 50 calls or 50 SMSes a day!
“What really needs to be done is to fast track the implementation and most importantly, have the consent module deployed which gives the user the choice to decide what messages he or she can receive,” suggested David, adding, “A grievance cell has to be in place for users to complain to as well to ensure strict action is taken against senders of spam messages. The mobile operators would also have to be penalised if this menace continues as it affects consumer experience.”
Most spam messages and calls, as surveyed by Local Circles, were for financial services as well as real estate. As many as 8 out of 10 surveyed said they were registered on DND, yet continued to get unwanted SMSes.