The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has released a draft titled “The Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference (Tenth Amendment) Regulations, 2012” looking to revise the measures taken earlier last year, for curbing SMS Spam (Unsolicited Commercial Communications). Targeting mostly unregistered telemarketers in the proposed draft, TRAI suggests that: - First SMS Offence: any unregistered telecom marketer will be charged Rs. 500 for sending an UCC through SMS for the first time, and will result in disconnection of telecom service on the second instance. - First Voice Offence: any unregistered telecom marketer will be warned for sending an UCC through voice for the first time, will be charged Rs. 500 for the second time and will result in disconnection of telecom services on the third time. - Customer Complaints: customer may lodge a complaint against UCC by sending an SMS to 1909 in following format: "short description of Unsolicited Commercial Communication; XXXXXXXXXX; date in dd/mm/yy" discontinuation of telecom resources for a period of one year for offenders whose telecom resources have been disconnected. - Operations To Warn Customers: TRAI also wants access providers to send an SMS blast twice in a year advising consumers not to send any commercial communications. - Customer Undertaking: Apart from that, customers have to take an undertaking from the subscriber at the time of purchasing the SIM that they won't use the number for telemarketing purpose. Previously, TRAI had launched a web portal at -- nccptrai.gov.in -- for customers to lodge a complaint against commercial communication where telecom service providers could take action against such…
