Surveys previously showed that Brazilians endured more unwanted robocalls than any other nationality. That problem has been significantly reduced but consumer protection organizations now fear the good work has been undone by a major reversal of policy by Anatel, the Brazilian comms regulator. One of Anatel’s most prominent anti-spam policies was revoked on August 7, but a little bit of history is needed to explain its significance.
Brazilian phone users have not only received many automated calls, but they would often find themselves listening to silence because no recorded message was played and nobody spoke from the other end of the line. This phenomenon was caused by call centers being so aggressive in competing for attention that their autodialers would instigate more calls than their staff could simultaneously handle. Knowing that a lot of their calls would be rejected, telemarketing businesses compensated by simply making more calls. This drove down the pick-up rates and created a vicious downward cycle as more calls were placed by call centers, leading to more calls being rejected by consumers, leading to even more calls being placed by call centers.
Thankfully, a degree of common sense was restored in the last few years through policies imposed by Anatel and because of some voluntary decisions made by the private sector. One of the key decisions made by Anatel was to force all telemarketing calls to display a CLI prefixed with the digits 0303 unless the source of the call is shown using the new national ‘Verified Origin’ system designed by the telemarketing industry for itself. It appears that Anatel now considers the policy to be too effective because most Brazilians routinely block or ignore any calls that begin with 0303. The regulator has now scrapped its 0303 policy, provoking outrage from consumers and organizations that represent them.
Anatel reported in 2023 that there had been a 41% reduction in short calls received by Brazilians because of the decline in silent automated calls made by call centers. The 0303 policy was believed to be a major component of the strategy that delivered this improvement. Tighter controls over phone numbers were meant to discourage call centers from abusing the public by simplifying the task of determining who had instigated most unwanted calls. This was considered so effective that there was an expansion of the 0303 policy on January 5 of this year. More businesses were forced to comply by changing the threshold for the 0303 rule so it applies to any organization making more than 10,000 outbound calls per day. It hence came as a shock that Anatel announced on August 7 that the entire 0303 policy would be scrapped with immediate effect. The use of 0303 as a prefix is now voluntary, which presumably means no businesses will continue to use the prefix for any outbound calls.
Anatel’s decision to expand the 0303 policy was ultimately the reason it was scrapped. Several prominent Brazilian organizations, including charities, appealed against the expansion because of the way it affected them. Their arguments won. This is how the appeal decision was explained by Vicente Bandeira de Aquino Neto, a member of Anatel’s Board and President of the Committee for the Defense of Users of Telecommunications Services (CDUST), in Anatel’s official analysis:
…no formato 303 produz uma tendência natural de não atendimento da chamada… De fato, a utilização deste recurso de numeração para os serviços de telemarketing produziu uma estigmatização das chamadas que o utilizam. Uma informação, secundária, mas inerente, transmitida para a sociedade… foi a de que todas as chamadas que chegassem com esse recurso de numeração nos terminais de destino seriam importunantes.
Observa-se que uma parcela dos consumidores passou a adotar rapidamente medidas para evitar chamadas com o CNG [Código Não Geográfico] no formato 303, seja por meio de bloqueios em seus terminais, seja simplesmente deixando de atender tais chamadas, em decorrência do abuso por parte do mercado.
Reconheço a aversão demonstrada pelos usuários às chamadas originadas com o uso do CNG 303, conforme apontado pela Recorrente. Considero, portanto, pertinente que a utilização desse código não seja compulsória.
Nesse sentido, ainda que se mantenha a destinação do CNG 303 ao uso intensivo do serviço de telefonia, sua adoção deverá ser facultativa, cabendo às entidades interessadas avaliarem sua conveniência, à luz da receptividade do público e da eficácia nas comunicações.
…the 303 format produces a natural tendency to not answer calls… Indeed, the use of this numbering resource for telemarketing services has stigmatized calls using it. A secondary but inherent message conveyed to society… was that all calls arriving with this numbering resource at the destination terminals would be annoying.
It is observed that a portion of consumers began to quickly adopt measures to avoid calls with NGN [non-geographic number] in the 303 format, either by blocking their terminals or simply by not answering such calls, due to market abuse.
I acknowledge the aversion demonstrated by users to calls originated using NGN 303, as pointed out by the Appellant. I therefore consider it appropriate that the use of this code is not mandatory.
In this sense, even if the NGN 303 is intended for intensive use of the telephone service, its adoption should be optional, with interested entities being responsible for evaluating its suitability, in light of public receptivity and effectiveness in communications.
There was criticism of the policy reversal from groups that represent consumers. Associação Brasileira dos Procons (the Brazilian Association of Consumer Protection Agencies) complained to Agência Brasil that:
É lastimável presenciar que o direito do consumidor continua sendo descumprido sistematicamente por quem deveria fazer justamente o contrário…
It is regrettable to witness that consumer rights continue to be systematically disregarded by those who should be doing exactly the opposite…
Instituto de Defesa de Consumidores (the Consumer Defense Institute) highlighted that the use of 0303 was supposed to provide transparency to consumers.
O objetivo dos códigos numéricos é informar aos consumidores que se trata de uma chamada de telemarketing ativo, possibilitando que os consumidores usufruam de sua autodeterminação para optar ou não em atender a chamada, efetivando-se o direito à informação.
The purpose of the numeric codes is to inform consumers that this is an active telemarketing call, allowing consumers to exercise their self-determination to choose whether or not to answer the call, thus fulfilling the right to information.
Anatel linked the revocation of its 0303 policy to progress that had been made with the adoption of Verified Origin, Brazil’s noncompliant version of the STIR/SHAKEN protocols developed by US corporations. STIR/SHAKEN is a combination of governance and technology protocols that is inaccurately described as a way to protect the public but which is specifically to distinguish between the calls that are legally permitted and those which are not legally permitted. Verified Origin is positioned by Anatel as a solution that will ultimately satisfy the same purpose as the 0303 policy, although the regulator also took this opportunity to reduce the number of entities that will be required to implement Verified Origin when it first becomes mandatory.
Many Brazilians are evidently upset about Anatel’s u-turn. The anger is palpable when reading comments posted to Brazilian groups on Reddit and left in response to the news on Facebook. They are right to be upset. The decision should be treated as an indicator of whose interests are actually being served by the comms sector and its regulator.
Some members of the public have been persuaded that initiatives like the 0303 policy or STIR/SHAKEN are motivated by a desire to protect them from unwanted communications. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of why businesses behave the way they do. Profit-seeking businesses have no interest in reducing the number of communications that ordinary phone users receive from large organizations until those communications become so annoying and intrusive that it provokes consumers to measurably use their phones less. An individual may feel that the optimum number of telemarketing calls would be zero; telemarketing businesses want to connect the highest number of calls they can without prompting users to switch off entirely.
Rules like the 0303 policy are introduced to moderate the number of telemarketing calls when they have become excessive, but such policies may be reversed if they stop serving the interests of influential parties — including politicians — that benefit from making a lot of outgoing calls. Policies and protocols like 0303 and STIR/SHAKEN are written by people who are ultimately paid to serve the interests of the organizations that make outbound calls. Pretending that they are acting in the interest of the public who receives those calls is just clever marketing.
It is up to regulators and governments to decide if they will favor the interests of the ordinary phone user, or if their priorities will be determined by the organizations that make most calls. That is why inhabitants of countries with less telemarketing should resist methods like STIR/SHAKEN. Big businesses develop protocols like these so they can enable an overall increase in telemarketing by improving the precision when distinguishing a legal call from an illegal call. Methods to stop illegal calls seem like a good idea until you realize how many other unwanted calls will be made legal as a consequence.
Once a country has gone down the same path as Brazil by forcing the public to accept very many unsolicited calls then vested interests will bitterly oppose any reduction in the number of outbound calls they make. That is also why, for the all the claims that current US policies have been effective, and all the effort US corporations are putting into persuading other countries, like Brazil, to emulate their approach, there has been no reduction in the number of robocalls that Americans receive.
