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DTI leaves consumers hanging

Nicola Mawson
By Nicola Mawson, Contributor.
Johannesburg, 03 Feb 2012

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has yet to fund a much-needed national opt-out registry that would allow consumers to protect themselves from the daily scourge of spam.

As a result of the lack of funding, about half of the provisions in the Consumer Protection Act (CPA) that deal with direct marketing cannot be enforced. The CPA became law last April and provides for a national opt-out registry, which allows consumers to pre-emptively block contact from marketers, including unwanted SMS and e-mail spam.

The National Consumer Commission (NCC) is still waiting for trade and industry minister Rob Davies to tell it whether it will get the funds it needs to build an in-house registry, says commissioner Mamodupi Mohlala.

Mohlala says a national opt-out registry is “critical” and the commission is seeing demand from consumers for an official list. “Last month, 200 people requested to be listed.”

Run-around

Spam accounts for as much as 90% of all e-mails and, while SMS spam is less - due to the cost involved - unwanted messages are more intrusive.

Last July, the NCC said the Direct Marketing Association of SA (DMASA), an umbrella body that looks after the interests of the entire sector, was the preferred entity to run the database.

However, in September, the commission said it was considering running the registry in-house, after people objected to the DMASA providing the service because of potential conflicts of interest.

Waiting game

To run the database internally, the NCC needs R5 million, but it has not received any feedback from Davies, says Mohlala. “We will roll out as soon as we receive the required funding.”

DTI spokesman Sidwell Medupe says the department “recently had discussions with the commissioner on the NCC budget for the current year and reached agreement on how the key projects will be funded”.

Medupe did not respond to specific queries about the registry. Mohlala confirms a meeting was held, but covered issues such as a need for more funding for the call centre and a case-management system.

Ineffective law

Pieter Streicher, MD of BulkSMS.com, says consumers have been left hanging, because there is no official registry. “Without a do-not-contact database, half of the Consumer Protection Act clauses dealing with direct marketing are not enforceable.”

Streicher says consumers' only other option, apart from signing up with the DMASA or third-party list, run by TrustFabric, is to unsubscribe from each company that spams them.

End-users can also complain about SMS spam to the Wireless Application Service Providers Association of SA, but this will only protect the consumer who complains, says Streicher.

Joe Botha, TrustFabric CEO, says the lack of a national list is a “massive failure” by government in terms of the Act's intention to protect consumers. He says the DTI is “failing Joe Public quite badly by not doing anything”.

A registry would take a maximum of three months to be set up, says Botha. However, he does not anticipate South Africans benefiting for at least another two years.

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