This week, a record number of over 2 000 delegates gathered in Durban for the annual GovTech conference, organised by SITA.
SITA is the “State IT Agency of choice”, in the memorable if infelicitous phrase (there is no choice!) of the late - the hour-late - minister Richard Baloyi of the Department of Public Services and Administration.
I was going to write something scathing about the fact that Baloyi didn't even bother to apologise to the thousands he kept waiting. Or write a sharp put-down of the attempt by Moses Mtimunye, SITA's acting CEO, to blame the ICT industry for the corruption and fraud so effectively exposed by ITWeb on Tuesday.
I could have made a mean-spirited observation about the striking predictability of the presentations of government officials, who mostly just repeat that they're still beavering away, 10 years on, at a consultative policy for a co-ordinated implementation framework for the integrated delivery of next-generation e-services.
Or I could have noted the curious situation that if a private sector manager works himself out of a job, he gets promoted or retires rich, but if you're working on the taxpayer's dime, the only way to keep your job is to keep having to tell everyone how much there still is to fix.
However, I was distracted. My phone kept vibrating all day, deluged by SMS spam.
I was notified by Microsoft that I should visit its stand to win a plasma TV. And about its roadmap sessions. And, in a third text message, that those roadmap sessions are free. Compuware wanted to give me an electric guitar. Cisco offered an HD camcorder. Accenture actually had a real computer on offer. All this spam arrived on my phone, cluttering up my inbox and interrupting my phone calls, every hour or so, entirely unsolicited, and without any means of unsubscribing.
This is in violation of section 45 of the Electronic Communications & Transactions Act of 2002, which is entirely useless in that it makes spam legal, but at least requires the hard-selling lowlifes to provide an opt-out mechanism.
SMS spam is far more invasive than e-mail spam. My e-mail doesn't vibrate in my pocket. It doesn't wake me up when I'm napping, beep at me when I'm talking, draw my attention when I'm writing, or interrupt me at dinner. I can (and do) run an aggressive anti-spam filter on my e-mail inbox, but I cannot do so on my phone. Against SMS spam, there is virtually no defence. Your phone, which costs you a fortune and which you presumably bought for your own convenience, is now simply a loudspeaker for mercenary marketers hawking their wares.
The spam was delivered by MTN Business Solutions, according to proud “brought to you by” messages. Some poor fellow on the MTN stand who got shouted at offered me a written apology, but said he couldn't do what I wanted, which was to be removed from the spam list. This makes him an accessory to the crime, of course, but why not? The problem, he said, was that MTN was just providing the SMS service to the organisers. “So you're profiting from the proceeds of crime?” I asked. “Yes, but it's not my fault; I just work here,” he shrugged.
Against SMS spam, there is virtually no defence.
Ivo Vegter, ITWeb contributor
If MTN Business Solutions couldn't help, I thought I'd check the Wireless Application Services Provider Association (WASPA) Web site for guidance, since it has always struck me as a fairly effective organisation for industry self-regulation.
The originating number belongs, it reported, to something called “IWS”, which is indeed a division of MTN. It is also nominally a member of WASPA, and should therefore be bound by the very Code of Conduct it was violating with gay abandon, over and over again, all day. However, the link to the IWS Web site offered only a Microsoft IIS error message. Of its two listed phone numbers, one was unreachable because the network was busy (presumably because of the deluge of SMS spam), and the other was answered by some private guy, who had never heard of IWS.
Remarkably, unlike Vodacom's service provider, neither MTN itself nor MTN Business Solutions (nor Cell C, for that matter) appears to be a member of WASPA. Perhaps that Code of Conduct, which expects members to comply with relevant law when sending SMS spam, is a bit restrictive after all.
All this mobile number abuse was organised by SITA, an agency of the same government that proposes to pass bureaucratic laws to make sure private-sector companies don't compromise personal information or consumer rights.
A rather intimidated but very helpful lady in the organiser's office promised to get me off the spam list. Her efforts appear to have worked. However, having to find organisers to ask them in person if they'd be nice enough to exclude you from their unsolicited marketing spam should not be necessary.
SITA, Microsoft, MTN Business Solutions, Compuware, Accenture, and Cisco, shame on all of you for abusing the good faith of GovTech 2009 attendees. SMS spam is unwanted and particularly invasive. If someone offers you the opportunity to spam a big list of numbers collected for an entirely different purpose, just say no. Accepting the offer makes you look arrogant, presumptuous and rude.
I don't repeatedly phone you at home to sell you junk you don't want, before getting five of my clients to do the same on the same day, do I? Have the courtesy to return the favour. Your brand marketing people will thank you for it.
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