Official sources said on Monday the operators had put in place a mechanism or system to identify bulk or SPAM text messages as thousands of connections, violating the regulations were being blocked on daily basis. A complaint can also be registered at PTA's toll free complaint number 0800-55055 or through email at [email protected].
A similar policy was devised in 2012, which used the same dynamics as the latest policy announced. Two years back, through a public notice in newspapers, PTA had warned marketers not to send unconsented, unwanted, fraudulent, misleading, spam and/or illegal text messages or calls to mobile phone consumers. This new regime, however, is aimed at curbing marketing SMS only as under the previous policy some legitimate traffic was also getting blocked, the sources said.
If a user's service is blocked for sending out 200 text messages in 15 minutes he/she can get their messaging service reopened by submitting an affidavit that the same will not be repeated. If the user violates the policy again, his/her messaging service will be blocked permanently.
In his comments on the latest move, a mobile phone subscriber hoped that the PTA had developed strong parameters to target only SPAM messages as a lot of users tend to send out bulk messages to their loved ones during joyous occasions such as Eid, Ramazan, New Year, and many others.