DoT Releases Draft Guidelines for Reducing Unsolicited Messages: Report

dot releases draft guidelines for reducing unsolicited

The Department of Telecommunications has released draft guidelines for reducing unsolicited business or commercial messages. In India, users are spammed with countless unsolicited messages regularly, some of which are also sent by scammers and fraudsters. To ensure that this is reduced and the customer experience is improved, the government has issued guidelines. The Consumer Affairs Ministry is seeking comments on these guidelines until July 21, 2024.

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According to a PTI report, in the guidelines, the government has said that any business communication or SMS will be deemed unsolicited or unwanted if it doesn’t comply with the recipient’s consent or the registered preferences. So the control will be in the hands of the consumer here. Any communication related to goods or services like promotional and service messages but doesn’t include personal communication will be deemed as a business message.

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In addition to this, businesses that use unregistered numbers or SMS headers will also be deemed unsolicited. Businesses will have to explicitly get consent from the customer to keep sending messages or making calls. If the customer has opted out or has not given consent and the business still tries to communicate with them on a commercial basis, then that too will be called unsolicited communication.

There can be no scenario here where the customer doesn’t get the option to opt out from communication that he/she has given prior consent to. The aim of the government is to ensure that the customer isn’t spammed with messages that he/she does not want.