Zain invests over a quarter million Jordanian dinars in a number of solutions and specialized systems

Zain, part of the Zain group, the leading mobile operator in the Middle East and Africa, announced its investment of over a quarter million Jordanian dinars in a number of solutions and specialized systems for filtering advertisement messages during 2008 and 2009. The investment also includes an “anti-spam system”, with Zain becoming the first mobile telecommunications company in the Kingdom to own and operate such a system. 

The system is considered a deterrent against unwanted advertisement messages by identifying these messages. It is continuously developed to counter any workarounds that the sending parties might develop and takes the highest regard for the privacy of customers and their correspondence.

Zain Data Services Manager, Osama Tarazi, said: “We at Zain are focused on achieving the highest levels of customer satisfaction in terms of the services we offer and are always striving to block any source of discomfort, especially with regards to advertisement messages”. “From this perspective, the company has dedicated its efforts towards finding the suitable solutions that will limit sending such unwanted messages” said Tarazi.

Tarazi added that the system relies on revealing suspect sources and on the volume of sent messages without the need to inspect their content. He further noted that the system also helps limit the reception of such messages by blocking the ones sent from abroad; considered to be a major source of such messages.

On the phenomena of advertisement messages, Tarazi said: “the widespread and direct access of mobile phones has deemed them a desirable marketing tool for advertising companies”. He warned that anyone who does not wish to receive advertisement messages should not register their mobile number at stores or commercial businesses or the like because they will create a database to be used for advertising and promotional purposes. “During the first phase, advertisement messages will not be stooped 100% due to the large databases available to commercial entities that were supplied to them by their customers” Tarazi said.

Today, Zain offers a number of solutions and systems which contribute towards limiting the reception of unwanted advertisement messages whereby the company started applying the operational phase of the anti-spam system since last year.

In addition to that, Zain had endorsed a collection of procedures and solutions that regulates advertisement messages. The endorsement was in accordance with the telecommunications regulatory committee’s (TRC) decision and enables customers to call the customer services center and request stopping the reception of spam messages. This, however, only applies to messages sent directly from Zain which, constitute a small percentage of the overall bulk of advertisement messages a subscriber receives.

December 7,2009