Sameer Ranjan Bakshir reports:
Personal data of people, whether address, email ID or phone number, cannot be sold. But you can still buy a ‘database’ that includes two crore email IDs and 10 lakh phone numbers of IT professionals for as low as Rs 2,500.
The Reserve Bank of India and Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) have very strict guidelines for data privacy, and to circumvent them, those who sell such data do it through an irresistible ‘buy one, get one’ offer.
They technically sell only bulk SMS software, which enables you to send as many as 10,000 SMSes in an hour. Actually, the software is free: they instead charge you for the SMSes which they send through the internet and not through mobile service providers.
Read more in the Banglore Mirror.
If I’m doing the conversion correctly, that’s 20 million email addresses and 1 million phone numbers for about $54.00. If I’m not doing it correctly, Fergie will probably let me know, bless him. 🙂