Eliminate the situation of SMS services 'picking the pockets' of mobile users

Faced with the risk of mobile users having money secretly deducted from their accounts by content service businesses, the Ministry of Information and Communications has taken strong measures to rectify this situation.

1 message a day, 1 year of pickpocketing Vietnamese people 230 billion VND

In late 2016, public opinion in the country was outraged by the Sam Media incident. This is a company specializing in providing mobile content services such as games, applications, videos, television, etc. in more than 30 countries and territories.

After cooperating with a number of Vietnamese enterprises, Sam Media organized advertising activities to win prizes for tablets and phones through the use of Landing Pages.

Sam Media’s advertising activities are carried out in the form of fun questions. After participating in answering the questions, users will be directed to a landing page with information on how to register for the program through command codes. This content is designed to stand out in large size. Meanwhile, the specific content about the price and how to cancel the service is printed in a much smaller font size.

Faced with the risk of mobile users having money secretly deducted from their accounts by content service businesses, the Ministry of Information and Communications has taken strong measures to rectify this situation.

Using this trick, from January 2013 to July 19, 2016, Sam Media attracted 93,735 customers to use the service. From there, it earned a profit of up to 230.5 billion VND from subscribers of four networks: Viettel, Vinaphone, MobiFone and Vietnammobile.

It is worth noting that according to the feedback of mobile users, many of them did not know that they were using Sam Media's service. These people said that they received messages about daily questions and thought they were spam messages. Many victims of Sam Media did not know that their accounts were silently deducted every time they received messages.

After the above incident was exposed and reported in the media, the Inspectorate of the Ministry of Information and Communications stepped in.

The inspectors' investigation concluded that Sam Media had committed many violations in establishing an unlicensed e-commerce website and providing information about content services via text messages. Sam Media Company was then administratively fined with a fine of 55 million VND.

Plugging loopholes, stopping mobile phone pickpocketing

In 2016, the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) issued Circular No. 17/2016/TT-BTTTT on the process and procedures for registering to provide information content services on mobile telecommunications networks. It specifically stipulates the responsibilities of content service providers and telecommunications enterprises.

However, after the Sam Media incident was discovered, the Ministry of Information and Communications issued Circular 08/2017/TT-BTTTT to amend and supplement a number of articles in Circular 17/2016.

More specifically, Circular 08/2017 specifically defines the role of the content service provider (CSP). This is to clearly define the role associated with the responsibility of the CSP, avoiding confusion with other related entities in the service provision process.

The Ministry of Information and Communications will take strong action to handle violations in the field of providing information content services on telecommunications networks.

In addition, because Circular 17/2016 only regulates the method of registering for services via SMS messages, Circular 08/2017 has added other methods of registering for content service provision such as short message prefix (SMS), Wap/Website, Application, USSD, Livescreen to promptly update current popular content service provision trends.

Mr. Le Quang Tu Do - Deputy Director of the Department of Radio, Television and Electronic Information (Ministry of Information and Communications) said: “After the incident of Sam Media, the Ministry sent many inspection teams to enterprises providing content services on telecommunications networks. The inspection results showed that not only Sam Media but also many other service providers also deceived customers with such tricks. Therefore, the Ministry issued Circular 08/2017 supplementing and amending Circular 17/2016 to more specifically regulate the responsibilities of related parties”.

Accordingly, Circular 08 supplements the responsibilities of telecommunications enterprises, more specifically network operators, in controlling the process and service provision system of CSP enterprises. Ensure that registration, authentication, fee collection, refusal, renewal or cancellation of services must be notified to users by CSP enterprises in accordance with the provisions of law.

Circular 08/2017 also specifically stipulates that service providers must send periodic messages (weekly or monthly) to notify users of specific information about the type of service, cycle, price, how to cancel, and how to contact the customer service hotline. This is to prevent the risk of users being forced to use the service without knowing it.

The strong hand of the Ministry of Information and Communications will force network operators to monitor and actively detect CSPs with bad intentions to protect the interests of customers. In case of complaints, both network operators and mobile content service providers (CSPs) must be responsible for receiving and handling them.

According to VNN