TRAI Offers 30 Days to Telcos to Curb Pesky Telemarketing Message Templates

Regulator TRAI on Friday directed telecom operators to take motion in opposition to misuse of telemarketing messages templates inside 30 days to curb pesky messages.

The regulator within the path mentioned that it has observed some telemarketers are misusing headers and content material templates of enterprises.

“Unsolicited Commercial Communication (UCC) is a major source of inconvenience to the public and impinges on the privacy of individuals and TRAI has been taking various steps to curb it. Today, Trai has issued a direction to stop misuse of message templates under Telecom Commercial Communication Customer Preference Regulations, 2018 (TCCCPR-2018),” the regulator mentioned.

As an alternative of cell numbers, the authorised telemarketing messages show headers which is indicative of the corporate from which it has come.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has directed telecom operators to make modifications within the code of practices (CoPs) round headers and content material templates of telemarketing messages below the TCCCPR 2018 guidelines and adjust to the path inside 30 days.

The regulator mentioned that look-alike message titles or headers are creating confusion amongst recipients of messages and are being misused by a number of the entities for his or her good points.

TRAI mentioned that the variety of variables in a template just isn’t outlined in CoPs, which results in misuse of the identical, and furthermore, the promotional content material is being handed within the variable parts of content material templates.

“…in order to minimize the said misuse, the number of variables allowed in content template needs to be limited in a way that not only gives PEs (Principal Entities) enough flexibility to phrase their content but at the same time, there are reasonable restrictions on number and placement of variables,” the regulator mentioned.

TRAI has directed telecom operators to re-verify all headers registered on blockchain primarily based messaging platforms inside 30 days and block unverified headers.

It has requested telecom operators to develop a system inside 60 days to quickly deactivate all headers which stay unused for 30 days.

Telecom operators are required to arrange a web based course of to reactivate headers for the messages and make sure that every header is distinct.

TRAI’s path requires telecom operators to re-verify all content material templates inside 60 days and block unverified templates.

Telecom operators are required to include procedures for quarterly re-verification of headers and content material templates of their respective CoPs, below the TRAI path.