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95% WhatsApp subscribers, 100% mobile users get spam despite opting not to, finds survey

This goes against TRAI guidelines which allows users to avail of a service disallowing such unwanted calls and messages.

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New Delhi: Ninety-five per cent of WhatsApp users and 100 per cent of mobile users receive spam messages, with 68 per cent getting four or more promotional messages a day – according to a survey by social impact advocate, LocalCircles.

This is in spite of clear regulations by the Telecom Regulatory of India (TRAI). According to TRAI guidelines, if a customer is registered as a DND (do not disturb) subscriber, they should not receive unwanted calls or messages. A DND subscriber may receive transactional messages, such as those from banks requesting for OTPs or inquiring about EMIs. Even from this list, 74 per cent of users continue to receive unsolicited texts.

Citizens across the nation were surveyed, and a total of 57,000 people responded. Of this number, over 60 per cent were men while 45 per cent were from tier 1 cities.

“Unsolicited SMSs, not to be confused with communication from the government or any other authorised source, is a misuse of citizens’ personal data. Many people face issues of calls and messages made to them by fraudsters, spammers, telemarketers,” says the survey.

report reveals that over 93 million numbers registered with TRAI’s “do not disturb” service were on sale on the dark web.

As stated in the survey, once WhatsApp Business was introduced, the number of spam messages were bound to release. Users may initially have switched to alternate messaging platforms, but have now more or less conformed to the latest guidelines. However, the survey also points out that the company isn’t doing much about it.

The patterns between WhatsApp and SMS users are similar – both parties primarily receive messages from financial services, healthcare providers and real-estate developers.

There is also a great degree of dissatisfaction with TRAI, the survey finds. Citizens expect the reporting mechanism to be easy and quick, and find the current system to be inconvenient. While WhatsApp is outside TRAI’s domain, 77 per cent want a “report spam” option to be enabled within the SMS app itself.


Also read: WhatsApp rolls out beta paid subscription service for business users


 

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