Can you really say that this is the end of spam or telephone marketing and unsolicited commercial calls to attract new customers? Once the law is made, the traps will not take long to arrive.
One of the most annoying things on a day-to-day basis is receiving continuous advertising calls repeatedly from companies. This type of “spam” has existed for many years and despite the fact that the workers are precisely doing their job, it does not mean that it is something really tedious and sometimes almost impossible to stop.
Today this is apparently possible to avoid as long as you sign up for the Robinson List. With her It is intended to have everything more controlled and all companies and other services must necessarily consult the Robinson List when they are going to send advertising and do not have the consent of the recipients.
However, it is important to note that signing up for this list does not mean that one is completely exempt from receiving advertising. Even though most companies respect the list, there are some that are using illegal methods to collect contact information from users, which means that even if you are on the Robinson List, they can still get your information and contact you.
Some methods used to collect contact information include the use of Internet information harvesting software, the purchase of illegal contact lists, and the collection of contact information through fraudulent or deceptive means.
“Companies want to sell, they have the right to want to sell and have publicity. Advertising is not illegal. The issue is how to get people to receive commercial impacts when they are willing to receive them”, Martín Piqueras, professor of technology at OBS Business School and expert in digital strategy at Gartner, explains to Computer Hoy.
“What we should try to do is to create a culture in which people are willing to receive advertising impacts when they want to receive them and do not see it as something negative,” adds the expert.
These calls can be difficult to block or identify, as the numbers displayed on the screen may be fake or not associated with the business that is calling. However, it seems that all this practice —at least for the moment— is about to change thanks to the application of article 66.1 b of the General Telecommunications Law.
You will stop receiving commercial telephone calls by law
On page 147 of the amendment Here is the fragment that explains how this regulation will work:
“In order to further protect the legitimate interests of consumers and users, it is prohibited for operators to make unsolicited telephone calls by the consumer and/or user for the purpose or effect of promoting or selling goods or services. The previous restriction will not apply as long as there is prior consent from the consumer and/or user to receive commercial communications that enables the operator to do so”, the regulations explain.
In a nutshell, this law regulates, among other issues, the right of users to the protection of personal data and privacy in relation to unsolicited communications, including not receiving unwanted calls. In this way, it changes the applicable legal regime that existed previously and contemplates in its text that this section It will enter into force on June 29 of this year.
Taking all this into account, Now it will be the user who must give consent in the event that they want to receive commercial calls.
All that glitters is not gold: made the law, made the trap?
There is a small point to highlight: the company may call you in the case of having a contract with you. The truth is that it does not sound so far-fetched —as long as they do not call at siesta time on a daily and continuous basis—, since you might need some adjustment by the company that they themselves offer you or who knows if you are interested in that new monthly offer they have.
Here also include another note and that is that Only calls coming from commercial switchboards located in Spain will be prohibited. If it comes from another country, it will be perfectly allowed to be done. In this case, it is true that 90% of the calls come from different parts of Spain, so it can be said that it is not a nuance that harms too much.
However, “the operators will look for another way to get new and more customers, without any doubt. And if they find it by phone or find it through other channels, well, they will go to them. Yes, it may be that we reduce one type of spam, but others may appear”, adds Martín Piqueras.
Companies that fail to comply with this law will be exposed to sanctions, and the Spanish Agency for Data Protection is preparing a circular to make clear the criteria that it will follow to sanction companies that break the rule.
“More severe sanctions are established in case of non-compliance, which can reach up to 20 million euros or 4% of the annual global business volume of the offending company” is hinted at in the circular.
Now the doubt arises in how the companies will be made with that consent that they will not receive a priori. An example would be to take advantage of the possibilities of contracts via email in which they secretly obtain approval to take action by telephone.
“We have a problem and it is the typical law made, cheated. The fact of legislating for the sake of legislating without having the efficient measures, effective and efficient techniques that allow the legislation to be followed, since it is practically useless. For example, if customers cannot be called from Spain, they will set up the call center in another foreign country and they will do the same from there”, explains the interviewed expert.
“To be fair and put both sides of the balance, it is necessary to launch regulations to identify which legislative bodies we want to create. The problem is that these regulations are currently always far behind what technology allows because the legislator is not a technologist. So to speak, they lack technological prowess,” he adds.
For now, we have to wait and see what new methods these companies will be able to carry out to get around the fine lines of this new regulation. It is indeed great news, but it seems that there are still too many loose ends.
