• Investment World
• eWorld
• Catalyst
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest

Ratna Bhushan

NEW DELHI, April 5

YOU couldn't have missed the innocuous ads. While some guarantee `friendship or money back', others offer `24-hour entertainment for lonely souls'. Then there are `love lines' offering `complete satisfaction to callers at any given time'.

Dubious advertising such as this is threatening to snowball into a major controversy. The only hitch is that no one seems to know whom to pin down.

Admitted Mr Pavan Duggal, Advocate at Supreme Court of India, "There are several legal issues involved. First, Section 292 of the Indian Penal Code defines obscenity as a penal offence and the content of these phone calls is definitely obscene. Also, Section 67 of the Information Technology Act 2000 prevents the publication of any information of this kind in electronic form. Unfortunately, these are the only two relevant laws which are violated by such service operators. Until anti-obscenity laws are made stronger, this trend will probably continue."

The advertising fraternity raises the issue of ethics. Mr Rohit Ohri, Senior Vice-President & Area Director, HTA, said, "While I believe that advertising is all about giving the consumer the right to choose, such phone call operations should not be allowed. The issue of concern is that there is no fool-proof mechanism to check the age of the callers."

Said Mr Alok Agarwal, Associate Vice-President, Grey Worldwide, "In mass media such as a newspaper which is read by everybody including children, it's not the right thing to do. The matter should be looked into."

According to Mr Gopinath Menon, Vice-President, TBWA Anthem, the issue rests more with the Fourth Estate. "Why are mainline dailies giving space to such advertising? Why isn't the Fourth Estate reacting to this issue? At the end of the day, it is a business proposition. The money made by telephone companies through talk time would also be substantial," Mr Menon said.

Added Mr Agarwal, "Unfortunately, most of these phone call services are supported by telephone companies, who stand to gain from revenue-sharing arrangements with the service providers."

While estimates of the number of callers such phone lines generate are not available, industry sources say there are as many as 50-60 such phone numbers in circulation. Also, such phone lines tend to attract a lot of first-time as well as repeat callers despite the charges being those of international calls.

Another reason why these phone call operators go scot-free is because most of them are based outside India, especially from South-East Asian and Latin American countries, Mr Duggal said. Yet another matter of concern, he pointed out, is that very few people report the matter to the police. "The issues involved need to be appropriately looked into," he said.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section
Margin Free set for leap into big league

Copyright © 2002, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line