CNN Central News & Network–ITDC India Epress/ITDC News Bhopal: 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.