Sunday, March 26, 2006
Exec to seek lawmakers' help on text spam ban
By Barbara Carla R. Quiero
DAVAO City Councilor Pilar C. Braga will request, in aid of legislation, the three city congressmen to look into text spam complaints and sponsor a bill in the House of Representatives for its prohibition.
Braga was dismayed over the seeming inaction of the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) director for Southern Mindanao Josue de Villa Go, Smart, and Globe companies on text spam.
Text spam is the sending of unsolicited commercial communications to cellphone subscribers.
In her privilege speech during last Tuesday's regular session of the City Council, Braga quoted Rodel D. Agustin, Smart manager for Mindanao operations, as saying that their company cannot be blamed for text spam because it is the content provider responsible for it.
"Complaints are mounting and consumers or users of cellphones continue to suffer from the inconvenience and intrusion and abuse," Braga said.
Braga said other countries have already banned and outlawed text spam like Great Britain, Australia, Germany, France, Italy, and other European countries.
"We need regulations to ban text spamming and restrict content providers from sending unsolicited promotional materials, alerts or notices, whether they are directly the telecommunication company or other industries or companies who have entered agreement with telecommunication companies," she said.
If a bill is pushed through, Braga said, it should include provisions such as the content providers should comply with all applicable laws and regulations concerning collection, processing, and use of personal data and that they should ensure that their mobile marketing campaigns are correctly targeted with appropriate content, which is of value to its recipients.
(March 26, 2006 issue)
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