You’ve got a message!

One thing I am still getting used to being back in India is the number of marketing messages I receive now that I have a local sim. This started immediately after I got the sim before providing my mobile number to numerous webapps, shops, govt agencies, and other everyday services.

Vodafone keeps sending messages about variety of phone and data packages. There are the massage parlour messages promising beautiful young girls as masseuse. Not sure how I got on their list. Probably remnants from the previous owner of the sim. Now after a couple months there are myriad other messages from shops and services where I had to give my phone number to start a transaction.

It is disturbing how casually mobile numbers are asked and provided in any and every transaction. It is also amazing that nobody seems to be complaining about the constant bombardment of marketing messages or the fact that there is no way to opt out. I wonder if this space is not regulated at all in India or people are just going by the ‘chalta hai’ attitude as in other situations.