Saturday, January 24, 2009

News from the parallel universe

Today there's another example of people living in a parallel universe which I post about every so often.

We live here but there's another parallel universe populated by people such as bureaucrats and company spokesmen.

As mobile phone owners we all get spam don't we?

There's a report in Gulf News about the ludicrous levels it's reaching.

Mobile subscribers and marketing executives say that while the rise of SMS marketing is a cause of subscriber frustration, the boiling point is often reached when a glitch in the system causes one subscriber to receive the same message up to 200 times.

Most of those complaining about spam messages have been etisalat subscribers.


So the spammers have Etisalt's subscriber base, right?

Lebanon-based marketing company El Barid has a database of 1.25 million etisalat subscribers, according to International Sales Manager Alain Haddad.

Confirmed.

But that's only in the real world. If you live in the parallel universe:

An etisalat spokesperson rejected the allegation that the company's databases have been leaked, calling them "highly inaccurate and baseless".

"etisalat's database is not accessible, sold or shared with any third party, for any reason whatsoever. etisalat maintains that its customer database is confidential and only limited concerned staff from the organisation are authorised to maintain it," he said.




The story is here.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

the company I work for do marketing campaigns and we do purchase databases from various sources like Credit Card companies, frequent flyer subscribers, and even buying the raffle tickets which got ton of info on them...

such sms spams does not have to be sold/distributed from Etisalat...

Seabee said...

Very true Naseem. The point is that the database is obviously available to buy or rent but Etisalat says it's not - they say it's "confidential...not accessible"

Keef said...

More disingenuous tosh from Itisalot.

Reality Check said...

I get the SMS spam non-stop. Companies I have never done business with as well. This database is most definitely available. I hat ewhen they come in the middle of the night or very early morning!

moryarti said...

there are companies in Eastern Europe and India that offer converting ANY Yellow, white or blue pages you wish, to a digital version (xls). And for a very cheap price I may add..

Etisalat publishes a new mobile phone directory every year...

Anonymous said...

Hi there,

Some interesting points there. I do think though thatsms spamming in one of those things that willl be cleaned up with time.
I have written a small piece on the parallel universe of dubai and the challenges it faces as a result.
See what you think.
http://jacquesrenault.wordpress.com/