War on mobile spam: Philippines gets nasty

Mobile spam has become such a problem in the Philippines that its National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) is now getting strict. New legislation being brought in is completely outlawing the sending of unsolicited texts. There will also be a dramatic boost to the size of fines that can be put on offenders.

What was it like up until now?

Pretty lax. A new promo or offering could be sent to a mobile owner unsolicited, but only once. However, this was never really checked so the system was completely abused. Not only that, but the law only allowed for a miniscule fine of 200 Philippines Pesos to be levied against offenders per violation - that’s 3 euro, folks.

Not only that, but since premium SMS was being sent as well, consumers found themselves having to pay for the spam they were receiving!

What are the new laws?

Telcos in the Philippines can no longer send unsolicited texts for any reason. Not just that, but the fine has been bumped to between 150 and 150,000 euro per violation - depending on the seriousness of the offense.

Source GMA News

What we think?

The NTC only got involved after a direct order from the President. Wow, mobile spam must REALLY piss people off. We’ve been seeing quite a lot of stories about spam recently - check out my article yesterday for examples of how different countries have been tackling the problem.