New Delhi: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) issued directions on Friday for all access providers to stop the misuse of message templates, under Telecom Commercial Communication Customer Preference Regulations, 2018 (TCCCPR-2018), said the Ministry of Communication in a statement.

Mandates issued by TRAI to all access providers

As per the statement, "TRAI has directed all the Access Providers that the use of more than three variable parts in the contents shall be permitted only with proper justification and additional checks." Further, it also mandated that "Access Providers shall have to designate a separate approving authority for such content templates. Each variable part needs to be pre-tagged for the purpose it is proposed to be used and a minimum of thirty percent of the message should comprise a fixed part so that intent of the original message, for which the content template was approved, is not changed by the intermediaries."

'Whitelisted URLs/Apks/OTT links/call back numbers shall be allowed in content template'

"It has also been decided that only whitelisted URLs/Apks/OTT links/call back numbers shall be allowed in the content template," it added. Furthermore, "All the Telecom Service Providers have been directed to furnish compliance report of the above direction within 45 days," it added.

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