The FINANCIAL — Do you often receive the advertising messages send by GSM operators and companies? And are you aware that these are spam messages, as you have not requested them and consequently by receiving m-spam your rights are being violated?
SMS spam is illegal under common law in most jurisdictions. However, in Georgia there is a legal system of civil law consequently legislation about spam messages does not exist. But spam can help to generate product sales. That is why many retailers use this service, ignoring customers’ rights. The main question is who bears the responsibility for spamming, retailers or the companies providing such services?
Mobile Phone Spam is a form of spamming directed at the text messaging service of a mobile phone.
Delivering a spam message to your mobile phone costs the company 0.2 GEL.
The main customers of such a service in Georgia are GSM operators themselves and moreover, retailers of clothes, shoes and accessories, actively using messages for advertising.
For the GSM Operators that have created their customer database, having collected all the information about gender, age and even on the spending habits of a mobile account it becomes much easier to target companies’ advertising messages.
Geocell Ltd by its service Zooom, where 800,000 Lai-Lai members are registered offers companies targeting by gender and age.
The cost per message through a Geocell cell is 0.2 GEL and there are no discounts connected to the amount of messages sent.
Magti offers the service for 0.06 GEL only for those clients who bring their contacts’ databases to the company. Sending m-spam to corporate clients costs 0.03 GEL.
“We pay great attention to advertising through messages; we have our loyalty card, where our consumers fill in their contact information. From this we create our database and report to our customers on all news,” says Goga Simonishvili, Marketing Manager of Adress.
Adress, which incorporates 7 brands – Celio, Etam, Tom Tailor, 123, Gerry Weber, DPAM and JOOP, owning 10 retail outlets in Tbilisi, is actively involved in promoting their activities to clients though messages.
“In my opinion, the whole chain including our company and GSM operators should be involved in delivering the messages to clients in a way that our notifications are not seen as spam messages.
We actually send news messages to our clients at least once a month,” says Simonishvili.
“We usually use the SMS service for promoting sales, new collections and some activities.
Our notifications are only delivered to those people who have thr desire and who themselves fill in the form, so we do not use the databases of GSM Operators,” says Maiko Burduli, Marketing Manager of Novo Group.
Novo Group, incorporating Mexx, Mango, United Colors of Benetton and Sisley, has approximately 4,000 clients on their database.
Moreover, except for retailers sending messages to the society, GSM operators are actively involved in promoting their services to their clients.
In interviews with The FINANCIAL Magti subscribers revealed that they generally get annoyed with the messages from 5959.
“Each day from 12:00 to 13:00 messages from Magti, requesting one to phone 5959, arrive. In my opinion this is a violation of my rights as I have not requested Magti to send me the notifications,” says one Magti customer.
In 2008 mobile users in the USA received 1.5 billion spam messages, a total increase of 40% compared to the previous year. Dues to this fact the Government has set certain regulations.
In the USA, the violator faces high costs, agreeing to pay 150 USD to each spam recipient.
In 2009 Australia’s media and communications regulator fined two companies and three individuals for almost 16 million USD for mobile spamming.
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