{"id":814,"date":"2007-07-30T17:40:00","date_gmt":"2007-07-30T15:40:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2007-07-30T17:40:00","modified_gmt":"2007-07-30T15:40:00","slug":"reply-stop-for-sms-spam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/814-reply-stop-for-sms-spam.html","title":{"rendered":"Reply STOP for SMS spam"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>These new regulations, set up by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.waspa.org.za\/\" target=\"_blank\">WASPA<\/a>, make it compulsory for companies sending SMS messages within South Africa to offer consumers a way of opting out from receiving unsolicited commercial SMS&rsquo;s by replying with the word &lsquo;STOP&rsquo; from their cell phone. This reply is to cost no more than a standard rate SMS, and where this is not possible, an alternative option must be advertised and provided.<\/p>\n<p>Consumers have always been able to lodge complaints on the WASPA website, and WASPA has imposed significant fines and \/ or suspended messaging services of several service providers and their clients for contravening the WASPA Code of Conduct. <\/p>\n<p>From the majority of complaints, it was clear that there was an additional need for a simplified standardised opt-out mechanism.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;The reply &lsquo;STOP&rsquo; command will greatly simplify the process of stopping unwanted SMS messages.&rdquo; said Dr Pieter E. Streicher, managing director of BulkSMS.com, a South African wireless applications services provider. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;It gives consumers a cell phone enabled solution to remove their cell phone number from a database. If a consumer&rsquo;s opt-out request is ignored by the company sending commercial messages, the consumer may lodge a complaint with WASPA, as ignoring an opt-out request is a clear violation of the WASPA Code of Conduct.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>The wireless industry regulations set out in the WASPA Code of Conduct specifies that consumers can only receive commercial SMS messages when they have requested the message or they have a direct and recent prior commercial relationship with the message originator and would reasonably expect to receive marketing communications from them. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/vb\/showthread.php?t=82694\">Comments<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New regulations aimed at standardising the opt-out process for SMS messages come into effect on August 1, 2007. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cellular"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}