The Communications Regulatory Authority said on Monday that it has blocked close to 127,000 phone numbers of advertisement senders since November 2017 to curb annoying and unwarranted text messages.
CRA's website (Cra.ir) shows that the fight against ad senders is still underway and 126,894 SIM cards have so far been blocked for bombarding people with advertising text messages.
Authorities at the oversight body are of the opinion that the battle against the ad senders is far from over, as new companies join the bandwagon of continuing such publicity campaigns.
The cost of mass advertisement through text messaging is still very low compared to other means of commercial promotion.
CRA aims to curb the number of such adverts by cracking down on firms using this indiscriminate mode of publicity. It has initiated legal actions such companies and has managed to reduce the number of such ads considerably.
People can complain against such ad senders by simply forwarding their phone numbers through an automated system.
They can simply send the ad senders’ number to 195 and the regulator will block the number after issuing a warning.
The authority has blocked almost 3,000 numbers in the first week of launching the system.
According to CRA, some 30 million complaints against ad senders have been received so far and concerted efforts are required to verify and block them effectively.
