Aspec warns about new anti-spam law: “Companies will continue calling consumers”

The law that restricts spam calls would have left an open door for companies to continue calling consumers, according to the Peruvian Association of Consumers and Users (Aspec). Despite the observations made by the Executive Branch to the norm, the Congress of the Republic distorted the initial objective of the legislative proposal by modifying part of the text. Below, we tell you what Aspec said about it and other details further.

Anti-spam law: what observations did Aspec make?

Last Thursday, September 14, Congress approved in its plenary session the insistence opinion that modifies the Consumer Protection and Defense Code in order to expand the prohibition of spam communications. However, a last-minute change substantially diminishes the effectiveness of the law enacted by insistence, according to Aspec.

“Despite the fact that Congress kept its word by insistently enacting the law that modifies the Consumer Code in order to restrict spam communications, it would have left a door for companies to continue calling consumers,” they explained.

According to Aspec, in section e) of article 58 of the law the conjunction “and” would have been replaced by the disjunction “or.” In this way, the text suffers a slight variation of a single letter and it remains like this: “The only exception to this prohibition (to communicate) is the sending of a commercial or advertising communication to that consumer who contacts the supplier directly. either authorize, expressing your free, prior, informed, express and unequivocal consent, to be contacted.”

For Aspec, “this innocent change of a single letter opens an unexpected way for companies to continue contacting consumers through spam calls.”

Anti-spam law: what actions did Aspec demand from Indecopi?

In Aspec’s opinion, in the original text there was only one way for the company to communicate with the consumer, which consisted of two steps:

1. That the consumer communicates with her beforehand; and
2. That the company can contact you to request your authorization in order to receive your messages.

Now, with the latest version in which the letter “y” is changed to “o”, the conditions are no longer so restrictive and consumers could continue to be “bombarded with mortifying spam calls.”

Finally, Aspec sued the National Institute for the Defense of Competition and the Protection of Intellectual Property (Indecopi) adopt immediate actions so that this law is not a “dead letter.”

“There is no reason for this change that substantially reduces the effectiveness of the law, except that it wants to benefit businessmen. Therefore, we ask Indecopi to adopt measures immediately so that a law so long awaited by consumers is not “letter.” dead”they sentenced.

Spam calls: where can I report telephone harassment?

He Indecopi has channels through which citizens can make their complaints and register the spam calls and other non-compliance by companies through the Citizen Services Subdirectorate or by filling out the “Citizen Surveillance” form which is available in the section “Online services” of your website. It is worth mentioning that this means is only to report the problem to said entity, but not to initiate a sanctioning process.