Unsolicited Commercial Communications-Challenges and Strategies

Delivered an online talk on Unsolicited Commercial Communications-Challenges and Strategies. This was held on 24.9.2021 and organised by the Asia Pacific Telecommunity (APT)

The problem of Unsolicited Commercial Communications (UCC) is a global issue that can take the form of nuisance calls and texts, as well as the serious dimension of fraud, harassment, misinformation and disinformation. It impinges on the consumer’s right to privacy and degrades the QoS of communications.

At a time when digital communications are becoming a lifeline, and digital transformation holds out much hope for universal socio-economic progress, the problem of UCC exposes consumers, including new and inexperienced users as well as particularly vulnerable consumers (children, senior citizens, persons with disabilities, etc.) to a variety of harms that could even reduce consumer trust and slow down the uptake of digital services.

Therefore, it becomes imperative for regulators, industry and consumers to tackle this problem collaboratively. International cooperation and capacity building too is essential as this is often a cross-border issue.

Also shared the excellent work of ITU’s Development Sector on this important issue that the team at Q.6 of Study Group 1, of which I was co-rapporteur (2018-2021), and which was based on rich contributions from the Members States.

This can be viewed at https://lnkd.in/dPuYzEah and https://lnkd.in/dGm2MN7X