Consumer Council has urged person-to-person spam phone calls to be included in the new legislation that covers only electronic messages
Hong Kong's consumer watchdog has called for curbs on cold-call telemarketing to be included in legislation being drafted to stop e-mail and mobile phone spammers.
At present, the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Bill covers only unsolicited electronic messages - fax, e-mail, short messaging services, multimedia messaging services and recorded phone messages - but not person-to-person cold calls.
Kenneth So Wai-sang, head of the public affairs division at the Consumer Council, said: 'There is not much you can do to effectively stop telemarketing calls, short of legislation, which the Consumer Council has supported.'
The government launched a two-month public consultation on the bill at the end of last month.
Last year, the Consumer Council received 181 complaints on telemarketing; 162 cases over mobile phone spam, 15 on unsolicited faxes and four via the internet.
