A level playing field: Tackling spam calls needs collective action

In the war on spam calls and messages, telecom companies have raised their pitch against regulatory norms while seeking a level playing field in the compliance burden. Telcos, through the Cellular Operators’ Association of India (COAI), have argued that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has unfairly kept delivery telemarketers and over-the-top (OTT) communication companies out of the ambit of its regulations. There’s merit in this argument even as OTTs and telemarketing firms fall in a grey area that is traditionally not covered by Trai.  However, with the technology leapfrogging and the definition of communication changing rapidly, Trai should be given the powers to regulate OTTs such as WhatsApp and Telegram, which are being significantly used for sending messages as well as making calls. The Telecom Bill does not clarify whether OTT platforms fall outside the regulatory oversight of the telecom ecosystem. 

As a positive fallout from the telcos’ outpouring against the latest Trai diktat on controlling unsolicited commercial communication, the regulator is reportedly working on a consultation paper on prescribing a framework for telemarketers. But, the nature of that regulatory framework is not clear at this point. While the government and Trai should come together to find a way out so that unsolicited communication on all platforms is weeded out eventually, the current war on spam should not be halted due to protests by telcos. Spam and unsolicited communication not only disrupt the life and business of consumers but can also result in severe financial losses through unlawful access to personal details and banking accounts.

  In the past, Trai had come up with many regulations to curb unsolicited calls and messages but they have largely remained ineffective. Besides technology coming to the aid of unregistered telemarketing entities in spamming consumers, telecom operators are often found to have taken a soft approach in dealing with the issue. The Trai amendments to the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations, 2018, brought out recently, attempt to battle the spam menace afresh.  Among the amended norms, consumers can now file complaints against spam even without registering their numbers on a Do-Not-Call registry; complaints can be made within seven days of a spam communication instead of three days earlier; five complaints against a sender in 10 days can trigger action compared to 10 complaints in seven days earlier; telcos are to hold security deposits of senders and telemarketers and those can be forfeited in the case of violation — all suggesting a tougher battle against spam. This also steps up the compliance burden on telcos. For instance, the amendments specify financial disincentives to be imposed on telecom service providers if they fail to implement the regulations. A telecom operator’s misreporting of the number of unsolicited commercial communications would lead to fines worth Rs 2 lakh for the first instance and Rs 5 lakh for the second. For any subsequent misreporting, the fine will increase to Rs 10 lakh. This is over and above the financial disincentives already imposed on telcos for invalid closures of complaints and some other technical violations. 

For the anti-spam regulation to work, a further consultative process is required. They should involve the relevant ministries (such as the Department of Telecom and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology), Trai, telecom-service providers, communication OTTs, telemarketing firms, and consumer groups. A regulation, however stringent, may fail to work if the issue of spam is not addressed in a 360-degree fashion. Also, telcos and the regulator must attack spam together, rather than being a divided house.