They will try to drown out the ringing voices – Newspaper Kommersant No. 242 (7443) of 12/28/2022
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Citizens can get the right to require mobile operators to block spam calls. In accordance with the draft law submitted to the State Duma, the operator will also have to request the subscriber’s permission to skip calls from various organizations. A similar initiative is being discussed at the Ministry of Digital Development, but banks have already opposed it: they fear that operators will start charging them additional fees for automatically notifying customers about debts. The ideas of the deputies also raise questions among communication companies.
“Kommersant” got acquainted with the bill submitted to the State Duma on December 27 by a group of deputies headed by the head of the Just Russia – For the Truth faction, Sergei Mironov. The document contains amendments to the law “On Communications”, according to which operators must obtain the consent of the subscriber to skip voice information messages over telephone and mobile networks. Such consent can be provided by the mailing customer, follows from the document. The mailing should also be carried out on the basis of an agreement between the customer and the operator. The subscriber will be able to demand to stop the transmission of voice messages to his phone indicating a specific number, except for information calls from the operator himself and the authorities.
From the explanatory note to the project, it follows that the reason for its development was that mailing messages to mobile subscribers are “massive and negatively perceived by the population”: according to a survey by the National Agency for Financial Research, in May-June 2021, 89% of Russians received spam calls .
A similar idea arose from the Ministry of Digital Development, which proposed the introduction of a free service for blocking spam calls (see Kommersant of December 15). The Ministry proposed to make free and built-in by default also the service of alerting the subscriber about the industry of the call, for example, “medical center” or “bank”. The new bill concerns voice and automated dialing, including using robots, clarifies the interlocutor of Kommersant, who is familiar with the details of the initiative. In Mintsifra “Kommersant” do not comment on the document.
Kommersant’s interlocutor in the government believes that the bill does not propose to confirm or identify the call, but simply gives the right to complain about it: “It is necessary to clarify the subject of regulation and terminology regarding spam calls.” Voice information messages in the current wording can include not only advertising, but also voice recordings that contain important information for customers, including from banks and telecom operators, the source notes. In his opinion, it is more reasonable to solve the problem of spam calls at the level of acts of the ministry, which will be easier to clarify than a bill.
Banks are already seeing the risks in the idea of blocking spam calls. As follows from a letter from one of the large financial organizations to the Ministry of Digital Development (Kommersant has it), in the version of the Ministry of Digital Development, the initiative “applies to auto-notifications of credit institutions, with the help of which the bank informs customers about the occurrence of debt or other risks.” There is also a risk of “unfair practices on the part of operators to charge credit institutions for the use of automated calls under the threat of blocking.” An interlocutor of Kommersant in the communications industry says that Sberbank, VTB and Tinkoff-Bank opposed the Mintsifra project. In these organizations, “Kommersant” did not answer.
Calls as a promotion tool are also often used by companies that are not able to invest in outreach marketing campaigns, explains TWIGA CG Vice President Karina Oganjanyan: “They are mostly small businesses, clinics, law firms, financial services.”
The deputies’ proposals are redundant, a Kommersant source in one of the major communications companies believes: “Operators are already using mathematical algorithms to protect subscribers from unwanted automated calls and provide protection services by offering various anti-spam services.” At the same time, Tele2 and MegaFon supported the idea of the Ministry of Digital Transformation, although experts warned about the threat of financial losses for operators who now charge for blocking spam.
Vimpelcom reported that they were studying the documents, Tele2 declined to comment, MTS and MegaFon did not respond. The Ministry of Digital Development proposes “softer regulation than the deputies,” says Kommersant’s interlocutor in the industry: “The bill threatens to form blacklists – blocking numbers from which ordinary voice calls can be made.”
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