PEW suggests code of conduct for wireless marketing

The Pakistan Economy Watch (PEW) on Sunday underlined the need for introducing ethics for wireless marketing. Mobile marketing is a powerful marketing tool which promises vast opportunities as it helps individuals and companies to establish direct communication with millions of customers through digital phones anytime, anywhere, it said.
Short Message Services (SMS), an instant communication medium, is now a phenomenon that has grown and spread at an amazing speed, said Dr Murtaza Mughal, President Pakistan Economy Watch.
However, lack of research has helped marketing through SMS emerge as a problem for common people in Pakistan, he added.
Authorities seem interested in claiming credit for SMS growth without seriously analysing its impact on society, said Dr Murtaza Mughal.
Government should do something about the mounting complaints of harassment, abuse, threats, obscene language and security breaches, etc, of owners of the cell phones, he demanded.
He said that customer satisfaction is something ignored by all stakeholders which is casting doubts on claims of care and social responsibility.
SMS is used in a very constructive way in developed countries while here it has become a hassle as majority receive dozens of messages they are not interested in, he said.
SMS packages on very low rates are helping some operators generate funds but annoying many as everyone can send hundreds of messages to anyone.
Such packages have encouraged many to send useless messages to unknown numbers for publicity, advertisement, cheating, providing false information and seeking objectionable relations.
Dr Murtaza said that majority of the messages received on a device are useless at best which just trigger annoyance.
According to a study, Pakistanis are now sending over 20 billion messages per year, he said, adding that it is safe to assume that over 90 per cent have no positive outcome.
It may be mentioned that first commercial text message was sent in December 1992 while today messages sent and received exceeds global population count and it is increasing.
It is the responsibility of the government to make this service useful for all subscribers, said Dr Mughal adding that websites offering free text services should be blocked due to their massive misuse.