“Lock them up and torture them”: Indian mobile spam measures aren’t working
We’ve reported before on the problems of spam mobile texts and calls in India. News today indicates the measures taken haven’t been sufficient. Shantaram Naik, an Indian Member of Parliament, has called for heads of unscrupulous mobile service provides to “be put behind bars and tortured”
Naik made this claim in Parliament. He was complaining about mobile companies who issue unsolicited phone calls and SMS 24 hours a day. Citiziens have complained about being woken up in the middle of the night by mobile spam. Naik says now is the time for Parliament to take this seriously.
Via Times of India
What measures have been tried?
Let’s look at some recent measures that have been taken before now, including one from India.
India: All SMS was tagged with an ID code, allowing any SMS to be traced to it’s point of origin. Complaints made to the National Do Not Call registry would be investigated, and action taken against the perpetrator. Obviously, this hasn’t worked.
China: A more severe measure was taken China. any given mobile number is not allowed to issue more than 200 texts per hour, or 1,000 texts per day during the week. On weekends and holidays, that amount goes up to 500 per hour and 2,000 per day.
Vietnam: All advertising SMS must be tagged with an ID code. Whenever a mobile owner is about to receive a “spam” SMS, they are notified and given the option to ignore it.
and finally, Shantaram Naiks solution: lock up the heads of these companies in prison. Give them a mobile phone. Call and text that phone constantly, so that they can never sleep.
From the story:
Shantaram Naik: “It is high time that police should appeal to the members of public to file FIRs against such companies. Their directors should be prosecuted under the existing laws itself.”
What we think?
It’s hard for me to imagine what it must be like to suffer from spam SMS - it’s just not a problem we have here in Ireland. Or, I imagine, in the rest of Europe or in the USA. This is also something of a personal blow to me. I’ve been talking about how much I liked the Indian anti-spam system, and here I discover it has been completely ineffective!
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The measure provided by TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) is pretty effective but the complaint system: The subscriber has to call his/her Operator Customer Care, the executive (with limited vocabulary skills and intelligence) and explain the nature of SMS, sender name (which most of them dont understand that “Sir how can you not see the number of the sender”?), etc.
This painful procedure often discourages subscribers from even taking the pain of calling their respective Operators and giving the details of the spammer. Mobile Spam is like cancer, it’s only going to kill the industry. If the Govt. (India) comes up with a re-enforced law/policy which prohibits any commercial/promotion SMS, Bulk SMS aggregators and Mobile Marketing companies will bear major losses and loss of business.