Unsolicited Commercial Communications(UCC):

Telemarketing has emerged as one of the simplest and cost-efficient tools for marketing products. A large number of these ‘telemarketing’ calls and SMSs are unsolicited, i.e. the receiving party does not want to receive such calls or messages. Such messages disturb the recipients, intrude into their privacy, and impose a cost in terms of time and effort. We can term such types of calls or messages as Unsolicited Commercial Communications (UCC).

Unsolicited commercial communication means any message, through telecommunications service, which is transmitted for the purpose of informing about, or soliciting or promoting any commercial transaction in relation to goods, investments, or services that a subscriber does not want to receive.

After receiving a lot of complaints from the subscribers the governments and TRAIs imposed a regulation on the telecom operators to maintain a registry of subscribers who doesn’t want to receive such communications. In the year of 2007, TRAI, telecom regulatory authority of India commissioned a common repository, Do Not Disturb Registry (DND), with the primary objective to curb unsolicited commercial communication.

After the establishment of DND registry, Telephone subscriber (Landline or mobile) who does not wish to receive UCC, can register their telephone number with their telecom service provider for inclusion in the DND. For customers who would like to register/de-register their request for DND registry may dial 1909 or SMS to 1909 with keywords ‘START DND’ for registration and ‘STOP DND’ for de-registration.