TEXT AND PHONE CALL ADS BY TELECOMS SERVICE PROVIDERS; A RISING NORM OR A TORTIOUS NUISANCE?

One never realizes the epic scale telecoms service providers (MTN, GLO, ETISALAT & Others) are willing to go in their bid to advertise their services until you take a cursory look into any mobile phone’s inbox. The messages from these Telecoms Network would appear endless. Most times, they appear so pushy and in-yer-face like. Nowadays, it’s not uncommon to receive messages cutting across a wide spectrum of services they tout to offer. They play gamut, from the mundane to the seemingly annoying.

On any day, these would simply have been glossed over were it not for the with-a-vengeance extremes they have now taken on. At any rate, you get no less than half a dozen text ads and you almost have to be deleting messages in your inbox to free up space only to receive more (and they seem unswerving in their resolve in sending more).

As if these were not enough, the text ads have now graduated into phone calls as if for good measure. You can now receive calls from your service provider advertising one “package” or the other at the oddest of times (they could have your sleep interrupted by an intrusive call or during your quite time, which is basically an intrusion on our constitutionally guaranteed right to privacy, just imagine how hilarious it will be when you have missed calls from your service providers. One tends to wonder whether the telecoms industry has any etiquettes and if at all, it seems to be observed more in breached than otherwise.
To Joe Bloggs, these may appear as mere trivialities not worth considering (although it may anger him). But as a legal mind, you are only too familiar with the fact that societal relations orbit within a legal kaleidoscope within which actions are viewed in terms of rights and corresponding liabilities (one Professor at Stanford law calls this ‘thinking like a lawyer’). Within this legal sphere, any wrongful act is actionable.

No doubt, telecoms service providers as SIM providers have a right ex-contractu to keep the customer posted on their latest developments or services. However, the moot point here is whether in doing so, they are to exercise that right within reason or without rhyme or reason (this of course will be left to the courts to pronounce upon). For people in the know, we are quite familiar with clichéd maxim of law that “Equity will not suffer a wrong to be without a remedy”. In this wise, do the above practices constitute a wrong whether in tort (in the form of nuisance) or in equity for which a customer could seek a remedy (in the form of a restraining order prohibiting it’s continuance) or would it be regarded as a mere triviality entitling the customer to private silence since the law “does not concern itself with trivialities”. The nightmare scenario surrounding this issue is that of a class action (something that healthcare multinationals and practitioners in America have had to learn about the hard way-there, they know it as “multiple torts”). Just imagine the toll 50,000 independent lawsuits will have on, say, MTN if they were to defend all these suits. The cost of defending them could rise astronomically and it could offset their profits and even creep into their shareholdings. This is surely an evil to be eschewed. It is however to be noted that in this our clime, we have not witnessed the same level of legal consciousness as in the case in America. With this in mind, they can ill-afford to continue this supposed nuisance. The plug has to be pulled on this abysmal practice.

Pls help get this post to the front page so as to create awareness to both nairalanders nd telecom officials. Also like and share if I speak ur mind.