Online payment platform Paytm informed the Delhi High Court that Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has enough and adequate powers for initiating action against telemarketers who are not getting themselves registered. The High Court was hearing a plea filed by One97 Communications Ltd (parent company of Paytm), which had accused telecom companies of not blocking the numbers involved in defrauding its customers by phishing activities.
Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Guidelines
TRAI had notified Telecom Commercial Communication Customer Preference Regulation, 2018 aiming to curb the problem of unsolicited commercial communication. Meanwhile, the menace of fraudulent calls and messages had also emerged in a big way and this issue was red-flagged by other sectoral regulators, like SEBI and RBI, who had sought TRAI’s assistance in controlling these activities.
The objective of the regulation is to effectively deal with the nuisance of spam experienced by the subscribers. The regulations provide for:
- Registration of senders (businesses and telemarketers): Through an easy registration processes, the business will be able assert their identity and build trust of the clients. This diminishes the ability of unknown entities reaching their customers with calls and messages that are fraudulent or otherwise of dubious nature.
- Registration of Headers: Using headers intelligently to segregate different types of messages, businesses shall be able to help their clients manage, delete or store communications related to OTP’s, balance enquiry, flight alerts, special offers.
- Registration of subscribers’ consent: The regulations provide the subscriber with complete control over their consent and the ability to revoke the consent already granted, at their option. A major abuse of the current regulations would thus be stopped.
Message template: The concept of registered templates for both SMS and voice communication was introduced to prevent deliberate mixing of promotional messages into the transactional stream. This will give relief to subscribers who feel targeted by unwanted communication today.
