The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Mobile subscribers tormented with spam

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Nov 12, 2006
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Mobile subscribers tormented with spam

Karthik Subramanian

SMSs and automated calls leave helpless Chennai phone users fretting and fuming "Who owns mobile phone display space? Subscriber or the service provider?"

CHENNAI: If you are a subscriber to a private telephone service, chances are that you have had harrowing times in recent weeks responding to unsolicited SMSs and automated calls.

Just how bad do service-providers want to sell their dialler tunes and ring tones? Their SMSs and calls have woken up residents, disturbed their chores, and irritated them at offices and just made them feel sorry that they even bought a phone.

An year after a Delhi-based lawyer Harsh Pathak filed a public interest litigation in the Supreme Court seeking an end to "endemic invasion of privacy of subscribers of mobile telephony services," there has actually been an increase in the number of unsolicited SMSs and calls. The case pertained more to third-party telemarketing executives.

After hearing the litigation, a Supreme Court Bench comprising of Justice N. Santosh Hegde and Justice S.B. Sinha issued notices to the Central Government and the Law Ministry seeking a legislation to ban unsolicited calls, especially from telemarketing executives.

A similar notice was also issued to MTNL, Hutch, Reliance Infocomm, Idea Cellular, Bharti Airtel, Citibank, HSBC, Standard Chartered, HDFC and ICICI.

But recently the service-providers themselves seem to be playing the role of tele-marketing agencies with even more vigour by hard-selling their value-added services such as dialler tunes, ring tones and contests, subscribers note.

What makes it most irritating is that they cannot even reply to the SMSs or the automated calls.

On an average, most private telecom subscribers receive up to four SMSs and two telephone calls in a day.

Cyber law expert N. Vijayashankar pointed out that most service-providers under their subscriber agreement had a clause wherein they stated that they could advertise to reasonable levels their new promotions or schemes with their subscribers.

"But what is happening these days is without a doubt way beyond reasonable levels.

It is possible to interpret the continuous SMSs and calls as spam and even book them under the Information Technology Act."

Do Not Disturb?

Interestingly, not many subscribers know a more recent development among private telecom companies wherein they have decided to maintain a "Do Not Disturb" registry. The less-advertised feature enables subscribers to have some peace of mind from unsolicited SMSs and phone-calls by calling up customer care executives or signing up through the official websites. The "Do Not Disturb" registry is the telecom industry's act of self-regulation. In fact, upon query, one customer care executive of a mobile service provider in Chennai said subscribers could actually "subscribe" for the "Do Not Disturb" service. Do telecom companies think it is a value-added service not to annoy their own customers? Some Airtel subscribers, meanwhile, not only receive SMSs and phone calls but also have the display of their mobile advertising various products. The service provider has managed to use the `service logo space' for advertising their value-added services. Which brings us to a basic question: Just who owns the mobile phone display space? The subscriber who bought the phone or the service provider? When contacted for a response, Airtel's representatives in New Delhi said they would get back with details on Monday.

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