Amendment helps stem the flow of SMS spam
By Mariam Mchedlidze
Wednesday, September 3
A new amendment will enable Georgian mobile phone users to easily get rid of the most unpleasant part of having phone – receiving notifications from various companies. Mobile users can now simply reply with “reply” service to inform the companies that they do not wish to receive their ads. Companies receiving such demands are obliged to fulfill the user’s request within 10 workdays.
Breaking the law that came into force since September 1, 2014, will now result in a fine of 3,000 GEL for the first time and 10,000 GEL in repeated cases. According to the Personal Data Inspection, in the future there might be websites that will enable users to delete their numbers from a database.
Employees of the Personal Data Inspection stated that prior to the amendment, users were able to request the companies through official letters, which was an inconvenient way of solving the problem.
“The companies are used to communicating with users by mediator companies. However, the process was mainly useless,” the Personal Data Inspection stresses.
The most recent survey conducted by the Transparency International Georgia shows that most of the civilians are annoyed by the notifications and consider them as useless messages.
It appeared that the new amendment is not inconvenient for the companies and most of them support the amendments. The company Elit Electronics’ employees stated that they have already adjusted to the new law demands.
“We have changed the contract with an advertising agency and since now we will control our mobile communication with consumers based on the recent changes,” the company states.
The Techno Boom country stressed that before the amendments, they asked their consumers to call the hot line of the company and warn them whether they wanted to receive the ads or not.
The new law about defending privacy was created on August 1, 2014 by parliament.
