In this day and age, mobile phones have become
such an integral part of our lives that relationships,
family affairs and even business deals depend on it. It
is convenient - it reaches the person you wish to reach
directly, wherever in the world he or she may be. If the
person you're trying to reach is in a meeting and cannot
pick up the phone, a Short Message Service (SMS) message
would normally do the trick. SMS is not only cheap; it
is also convenient and can be sent to multiple persons
at once.
The popularity of SMS is rising fast in Malaysia.
Statistics from the Malaysian Communication and Multimedia
Commission revealed that last year, 4.5 billion SMS messages
had been sent by the end of September. The figure is astounding
- especially since it's been less than three years that
cellular operators rolled out inter-operator SMS in October
2001.
Mobile phone users are not the only ones who
find SMS a convenient and cost-effective way of communicating.
Mobile marketing consultants see a huge potential in promoting
products to consumers via SMS since it is seen as one
of the only ways, compared to other advertising media,
where targeted marketing can be achieved. In fact, overseas
trends signal that mobile marketing is already an established
way of promoting goods and services in Australia and Europe.
While SMS of discounts on items you've been
eyeing for the past week are welcome news, scams and other
unwanted advertising messages are not. Spam, which have
long been the bane of e-mail users have now reached mobile
phones - with the difference that there are no "unsubscribe"
or "block sender" buttons to click on.
Junk SMS has proliferated in the past years,
especially in countries where mobile marketing has recently
taken off. It rides the tide of popularity in text messaging
whilst sparking off a flood of customer complaints to
cellular operators. Phone spam is frustrating to users
and is a threat to mobile marketing as most consumers
are put off by these intrusions into a very personal space,
their mobile phones.
Not only are they annoying - junk SMS can
also be misleading and offensive. In Britain, it is common
for users to receive unsolicited SMS messages from sex
hotlines as well as seductive text messages that says:
"I fancy you…to find out who I am, call…"
The love message is a scam to get people to
reply to a number that automatically charges a fee to
the callers. Both sorts of SMSes are sent to random users
- which could include minors.
That's not the worst of it. In 2002, U.K.
mobile service provider Moby Monkey sent large numbers
of unsolicited text messages to mobile phone users telling
them they had won a "£500 Mystery Award". Users were urged
to call a £1.50-per-minute premium rate telephone number
and claim their reward if they could answer a simple question.
Those who called found that they were offered travel discount
vouchers instead of money, as had been implied by the
ad.
Additionally, the full value of the vouchers
was applicable only if consumers purchased a number of
trips.
Such cases are becoming common in countries
where mobile marketing is a popular trend. Most of these
nations have already developed regulations or formed special
committees to combat spam and scam via telecommunication
tools and those that have yet to, are pushing for legislation
on the matter.
In the case of Moby Monkey, the company was
fined £50,000 (about RM283, 000) by the Independent Committee
for the Supervision of Standards of Telephone Information
Services (ICSTIS) and was barred from continuing the promotion.
In its ruling, ICSTIS slammed Moby Monkey's
tactics, which it said seriously breached the code of
practice governing premium rate services. The unsolicited
messages were also sent to corporate users, children and
the same recipients multiple times - all violations of
ICSTIS regulations.
Mobile phone users in Malaysia have been quite
lucky so far as mobile marketing is still very much in
its infancy here and such cases are yet unheard of. However,
SMS service providers and network operators must prepare
to take responsibility for self-regulation in order to
safeguard the credibility of the fledgling industry and
to prevent such occurrences from happening. |
