COERCIVE MARKETING STRATEGY– AN OFF-SHOOT OF SOCIAL IRRESPONSIBILITY

The Supreme Court in Delhi has issued notices to a numbers of mobile phone service providers and certain Private Banks on a Public Interest Litigation initiated for what they describe as “Intrusion of Privacy through nuisance phone calls” by the so-called Telemarketing call centers.

This concept of marketing has become a source of great pain, disgust and above all blatant invasion of privacy for the mobile users. In fact it has come to an extent that the companies indulging in telemarketing know more about you than even your own spouse. The telemarketing concept in India has taken the form of “Coercive Marketing”. But I wonder why it took so long for somebody to realize the violation of fundamental right and take action against this coercive marketing tactics. To my knowledge this sort of dirty marketing is going on in India atleast for the last 5 years. So does it mean that we are so much ignorant about our Fundamental rights or is it that our tolerance levels are so high?

In India we see the Government focusing a lot on the security and integrity of the country but at the same time the security of citizens, their privacy and Right to peaceful existence is given scant regard. The value and rights of humans is only defined in the constituency but never takes the form of a Law or put into practice.

In order to prevent mischief and illegal possession and usage of mobile phone connections the Government insisted that the service providers demand the identity proofs and address proofs of persons subscribing to mobile phone services. In case you opt for Bank Loan you are required to furnish almost a brief history of your life and people dependent on you. But unfortunately the Government does not bother to look beyond that. The Government and the service providers restrict their duty only in gathering this data. None of them take the responsibility of preserving this data and its confidentiality. They never realized the value of such data or the impact of its leakage into the wrong hands or misuse of information therein. The problem in our country is, we still do not know the difference between data and information. Data is a bunch of facts and when it is processed with a particular purpose or vision the resultant useful output is information. In India you can see everybody everywhere interested in collecting volumes of data and creating files deriving very little information out of it. In this case too the Government and the service providers are interested only in collecting data and nobody realizes how dangerously this data could be misused when it is processed into information by the supposedly socially responsible corporate entities.

What has resulted is rampant illegal sale of the data to the call centers involved in telemarketing Insurance, Credit Cards, Consumer Loans etc who in turn processed those data and created a directory of potential consumers for their products and began what has now become a “Coercive Marketing Strategy”.

Should the Government not enact a law for safety and confidentiality of the personal data collected even before they stipulate this condition? Why should the Supreme Court wait for a Public Interest Litigation to be filed and not act suo moto (on its own) when they find the fundamental rights of citizens being blatantly violated? Why do these MNCs who boast of highest levels of Integrity in its corporate policies within their organizations become so dirty when it comes to business especially in India?

If the Government, Judiciary and the Corporate India who are supposed to be the pillars on which the present and the future of this country stands do not imbibe the Concept of Social Responsibility in their charter of duties, then a day will come when this Coercive Marketing will take the form of Coercive Sale and soon we will not even be a civilized India, let alone a developed India.