APPENDIX 27
Letter to Derek Wyatt MP from the Deputy
Director of ICSTIS
CULTURE MEDIA AND SPORT EVIDENCE SESSION
ON 26 FEBRUARY 2002
I was in the public area for the session of
the above Select Committee when taking evidence from the five
regulators from ITC, Oftel, BSC, RA and Radio Communications Agency
earlier today.
You raised some very pertinent questions of
David Edmonds, which essentially related to "spamming"
of e-mails and to content and SMS "spamming" issues
on mobile telephones. The purpose of my writing is to complement
with some more detail the answers provided to you at the time
by David Edmonds, Director General of Oftel.
UNSOLICITED E-MAILS
You mentioned the annoyance of receiving inappropriate
e-mails advertising pornographic material. You, and other members
of the public, do in fact have a right to "opt-out"
from receiving such promotions by registering with the e-mail
preference service which has been established by the Direct Marketing
Association. Registration can be undertaken on line at www.dma.org.uk.
LOCATION BASED
ADVERTISING ON
MOBILE HANDSETS
You gave the example of receiving unsolicited
text messages on a mobile handset whilst shopping at Bluewater.
Again, consumers can opt-out from receiving such messages by registering
with the Telephone Preference Service which has been established
by DMA and can be found at the same website address above.
REGULATION OF
MOBILE CONTENT
ISSUES
My organisation—ICSTIS—has responsibility
for regulating any promotion or content which is charged at a
premium and which may be delivered to either a conventional telephone
or to a mobile telephone. In the latter case this may be in the
form of a more expensive SMS service which contains a wide range
of content. ICSTIS is an independent industry funded regulator
which has powers underpinning us provided through the telecoms
licence. I attach a copy of our last Activity Report and our recently
updated Code of Practice. If you would be interested to know more
about the work of ICSTIS and how we are dealing with some of the
complicated matters of content regulation around both the Internet
and mobile telephony and how we will relate to OFCOM then please
do not hesitate to contact me.
26 February 2002
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