More than 30 000 users of popular social networking application MXit have opted out of direct marketing by signing up with TrustFabric, a rival to the Direct Marketing Association of SA (DMASA).
In terms of the Consumer Protection Act (CPA), which came into effect last April, a national opt-out registry is meant to be set up by the National Consumer Commission.
However, by February this year, the commission was still waiting for the Department of Trade and Industry to approve R5 million in funding needed for the directory. The DMASA had bid to run the registry, but was unsuccessful, after concerns were raised over its independence as it is a direct marketing umbrella body.
No spam
TrustFabric, which runs an independent direct marketing opt-out list, recently launched a mobile version of its opt-out service on MXit, and recorded 32 000 registrations within the first 10 days.
“I think most people want a way to block sales calls and SMS spam.” He says MXit has 10 million active users and it is fairly easy to build a MXit app and the service scales well.
“MXit represents a pretty broad spectrum of people, most of whom are exposed to random sales calls and SMS spam every day.” Botha says these include sales calls and SMSes offering loans, life insurance, mobile phone deals and other services.
Botha adds that partnering with MXit also allows the company to offer a low-cost opt-out option through a mobile device. “By making our opt-out service more accessible using MXit and mobile phones, a much wider group of citizens are now able to block direct marketing.”
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