In future, all Telekom customers to be protected from unwanted calls

The law is currently being revised. Article 45a is the subject of discussion. A new provision is to oblige telecommunications providers to protect customers from unsolicited advertising calls. This is stipulated by the NZZ on Sunday in its current issue.

Only Swisscom now maintains a blacklist for dubious call centers. What is pleasing from the customer's point of view, however, is a potential nuisance for reputable market and opinion research institutes (Werbewoche.ch reported). They complain about ending up on the blacklist, even though they adhered to the industry code.

The draft of the new Telecommunications Act therefore obliges telephone companies not to obstruct serious market and social researchers. The solution is a whitelist on which the numbers of correctly operating companies are recorded. Swisscom already maintains such a list - but only the Federal Statistical Office is on it.

Opinions on the size of the problem of erroneously prevented calls differ widely between Swisscom and Market Research. Swisscom asserts that it does not block VSMS (Association of Swiss Market and Social Research) members who comply with its industry guideline. The problem still exists, on the other hand, criticizes Stefan Klug of the market research company Demoscope in the NZZ am Sonntag.

A pilot test, which the two sides have agreed on, should now bring clarity. This is to investigate whether serious researchers are also being obstructed by Swisscom.