Who will bear the cost of unsubscribing to SMS? The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology responds to suggestions from netizens
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has recently provided an official response to the suggestion from netizens that the unified instruction for unsubscribing SMS should be borne by the marketing information sender.
On July 29th this year, a netizen left a message on the leadership message board of People's Daily Online, stating that many people have encountered subscription SMS pushed by various platform institutions, including activity notifications, point redemption, or hot topic information. The push time has no relatively fixed pattern, and to some extent, it has constituted information harassment for users. This type of text message usually has an unsubscribe method set, which usually requires replying to the push number with an English "T", "TD" or "unsubscribe". However, the charging mechanism of the communication operator defaults to the requirement that the fee for unsubscribing to the text message must be borne by the respondent, that is, the sender of the text message deducts the fee. Therefore, the 0.1 yuan fee for unsubscribing to the text message becomes a fee that users must bear if they want to unsubscribe from it.
This netizen suggested that all push notifications should have a unified unsubscribe instruction of "TD". Relevant departments at all levels should clarify who will bear the cost of unsubscribing and sending "TD" messages. In order to protect the rights and interests of users and reduce SMS harassment, the 0.1 yuan fee for unsubscribing messages should be borne by the original information pusher.
On September 11th, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology replied, "Your suggestions have been received. Thank you for your concern and valuable opinions on garbage information management. We will carefully study your suggestions and consider them in the next step of work, effectively safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of the people!"