The warning comes after the CITC has received reports of customers complaining about the flurry of Ramadan-related SMS marketing messages arriving to their mobile phones, many of which sound much like the types of junk mail that clutter people’s in-boxes.
Some of the messages wish people 'Ramadan Kareem' followed with an invitation to a store’s holiday sale.
The CITC, which acts as a governmental consumer advocate in information technology, says these SMS messages are a violation of privacy and the right to be left alone. The warning was published in many local newspapers to put companies on notice.
The CITC says that all SMS marketing should include instructions on how to be removed from a marketing list. The CITC also pointed out that it was illegal to offer cash or prizes, legitimately or otherwise, as an SMS marketing tool.
“We have already stopped a number of violating companies and imposed the stated penalty on them,” said Malek, without providing the names of any companies that have been reportedly been punished. “These companies are very easy to be tracked. I urge people not to respond to these messages, which are basically made to extort their money,” Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper quoted him as saying.
An official at Mobily, the Kingdom’s second telecommunications provider, said these SMS messages place a burden on the network, clogging the system.
“Our company is suffering because of this kind of violation,” said Mobily spokesman Hamoud Al-Ghobainy. “The call costs the customer from SAR5 to SAR7 per minute without his knowledge”
Al-Ghobainy said Mobily blocks numbers where these SMS messages originate, but they need customers to report them in order to be tipped off to the racket.
Graeme Baker, General Manager, Middle East and Gulf, at AdaptiveMobile commented: “Consumers are now using phones which can deal with mobile data more effectively. Consequently, operators are offering their customers revenue-generating data services which the customer becomes familiar with receiving.
The mobile has been identified as a lucrative channel for marketers to reach individuals, mainly due to the mobile phone being such a personal device. However, marketers must establish a level of trust with these consumers and demonstrate that they respect the one-to-one relationship that they have been given access to, by the customer.”
He continued: “When marketers use this channel inappropriately, such as with the Ramadan-related messages, and consumers receive messages that they have not signed up for, the trust is broken. This costs the network money, and more importantly damages the relationship that the customer has with the network. Customers can start to question why am I not being protected from these messages? Why is my network not equipped to filter them out? The ultimate fallout is the customer leaving for a competitor service."
Baker said he welcomes the CITC’s steps to put pressure on Saudi businesses not to fall foul of this practice. However, AdaptiveMobile believes the responsibility lies with the mobile operators to protect their customers as they have the capability to see the overall picture when it comes to data traffic; since marketing messages arrive on consumers’ phones in many guises, SMS, MMS or even over the mobile Internet.”
Note: AdaptiveMobile is the leading mobile security provider of unified customer protection for enterprises and individuals. The company offers comprehensive proactive protection from the increasingly prominent threat of mobile viruses, malware, inappropriate content, unsolicited communications and spam at a corporate and consumer level. AdaptiveMobile’s software works across all mobile and wireless bearers, for all technologies including messaging, internet and video.
AdaptiveMobile was founded in 2003 and boasts some of the world's largest mobile operators as customers and the leading security and telecom equipment vendors as partners. The company is headquartered in Dublin with offices in the North America, Europe, South Africa, Middle East and Asia Pacific.
