regulator Try On Friday, it directed telecom operators to take action against misuse of telemarketing message templates to stop objectionable messages within 30 days.
The regulator said in the direction that it has noticed that some telemarketers are misusing the header and content templates of enterprises.
“Unsolicited Commercial Communications (UCC) is a major source of inconvenience to the public and encroaches on the privacy of individuals and TRAI is taking several steps to curb the same. Today, TRAI has issued a notification to prevent misuse of message template under Telecom Commercial has issued a direction for the Communications Customer Preference Regulations, 2018 (TCCCPR-2018),” the regulator said.
Instead of mobile numbers, authorized telemarketers display message headers indicating the company it came from.
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has directed telecom operators to make changes in the code of practices (COP) around header and content template of telemarketing messages under TCCCPR 2018 regulations and comply with the direction within 30 days.
The regulator said that similar looking message titles or headers are causing confusion among the recipients of the messages and are being misused by some entities for their own benefit.
TRAI said that the number of variables in the template has not been defined in the CoP, which leads to misuse, and moreover, promotional material is being passed in variable parts of the content template.
“…to mitigate the said abuse, there is a need to limit the number of variables allowed in a content template in a way that not only gives PEs (Principal Entities) enough flexibility to phrase their content but also As well as, the regulator said, reasonable restrictions on the number and placement of variables.
TRAI has directed telecom operators to re-verify all headers registered on the blockchain based messaging platform within 30 days and block unverified headers.
It has asked telecom operators to develop a system within 60 days to temporarily disable all headers that remain unused for 30 days.
Telecom Operators need to iterate the headers for messages and set up an online process to ensure that each header is distinct.
TRAI’s directive requires telecom operators to re-verify all content templates within 60 days and block unverified templates.
Telecom operators are required to incorporate procedures for quarterly re-validation of header and content templates in their respective CoPs under TRAI directive.