Automatic measures against aggressive telemarketing to be adopted

 ROME - Unwanted calls with commercial offers or proposals may decrease. Following the ineffectiveness of the Opt-Out Registry, an automatic measure against aggressive telemarketing has been in place since Tuesday. But beware: it only affects commercial calls from foreign landlines masked with Italian area codes. The measure, emphasizes Assoutenti (a consumer protection association), is a first step in combating the phenomenon but is not sufficient to stop it.

 On Tuesday, the AGCOM provisions adopted in May came into force. These are intended to act as a filter against so-called spoofing, i.e., the unlawful modification of a caller's telephone number (CLI – Calling Line Identity). The measure targets calls from abroad to Italy that display a caller ID corresponding, unlawfully, to an Italian number. In this way, telemarketing companies hide their true identity, making the call appear to be coming from a reliable source, such as a bank, to trick the unsuspecting caller into answering. National telephone operators receiving calls from foreign operators are required to block them directly and prevent calls from being forwarded to an Italian landline.

 The measures proposed by AGCOM “will be implemented in two steps”, explains Gabriele Melluso, president of Assoutenti. Starting November 19, calls from abroad with an Italian mobile number will also be blocked, unless the user is actually roaming abroad. Telephone operators that fail to comply with the measures to combat caller ID fraud will face heavy fines: “up to €1 million.” However, “we will have to wait until November,” the association anticipates, “when the block will also apply to fake mobile numbers, to determine whether the measure will bring real benefits to users.”

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