Russian antitrust fines MegaFon with 1 mln rbl for illegal SMS ads

MOSCOW, Jun 7 (PRIME) -- Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service has imposed two fines of 500,000 rubles each on mobile operator MegaFon for illegal SMS advertisements, the service’s Moscow branch said Tuesday in a statement.

“The company has violated law by sending two SMSs with advertisements of mobile games and a money reward from MegaFon to a subscriber without his consent,” the statement read.

The subscriber asked the operator to revoke consent to receive SMS mailouts, which was given when signing a contract, but the request was not validated.

The law obliges operators to receive consent of subscribers prior to sending them any advertising materials.

MegaFon serviced 73.9 million subscribers in the country as of the end of March.

(65.7894 rubles – U.S. $1)

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