Businesses in a quandary as India battles mobile spam

TRAI's new SMS regulations target spam but could disrupt legitimate business communications, while OTT platforms like WhatsApp remain difficult to regulate

- VERNIKA AWAL

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has initiated a major crackdown on spam and malicious messages sent via SMS services. Under the new regulations, businesses are required to whitelist any official links sent through SMS, ensuring better traceability of content being sent from telemarketers to users.

While this move is a positive step towards safeguarding India’s digital economy by curbing Unsolicited Commercial Communications (UCC), it poses a potential problem: legitimate SMS communications could be disrupted. The core issue lies in whether businesses such as e-commerce firms and banks have registered all their communication channels and whitelisted every link typically used for user interactions. This creates a complex scenario, potentially affecting both businesses and users.

THE TRAI CRACKDOWN

It is important to understand what the TRAI crackdown entails. Starting in November, TRAI seeks to bring in traceability of communications delivered through SMS messaging in a series of measures. The reason for this is the rising number of spam and scam messages sent to all users, leading to a massive rise in bank fraud and theft of money through digital interfaces.

To begin with, TRAI said in August that telemarketers who contact users through commercial communication lines starting with ‘140’ must compulsorily shift to digital ledgers and blockchain platforms—the first step towards ensuring accountability and traceability. The shift must be completed by 30 September by the commercial operators themselves so that they can continue their user communications services.