Sociologists Sound the Alarm: New Call Labeling Rules Threaten Research Activities

The VCIOM Analytical Center and other organizations involved in telephone surveys have expressed serious concern about the introduction of new call labeling rules, which came into force on September 1. The changes, aimed at combating telephone scammers, could have a devastating impact on sociological practice in Russia.

According to the new requirements, telecom operators are obliged to label calls from legal entities and individual entrepreneurs, indicating the company name and call category, such as "bank" or "advertising," on the subscriber's phone screen. However, the payment for this labeling now falls on businesses, which is causing discontent among research companies. VCIOM supported a petition posted on the "Platform for Petitions of Runet," which calls on Russian President Vladimir Putin to review these conditions.

The authors of the petition argue that the introduction of a fee for labeling will make telephone surveys economically impractical. For example, VCIOM conducts about 27 million calls as part of its research, and at the new rates of the "Beeline" operator, they will have to pay 24 kopecks for each call. This will lead to additional costs of more than 5 million rubles, while the total revenue from the project is less than 4 million rubles.

In parallel, the association of research companies "Group 7/89" appealed to the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) with a request to check telecom operators for possible cartel collusion. The letter indicates that operators such as MegaFon, MTS, and VimpelCom charge a fee for each call, even if the connection did not take place. This contradicts the current rules, which prescribe to tariff only successful connections.

In response to these changes, Valery Fedorov, General Director of VCIOM, stated that the sociological industry is in "great danger." He stressed that the new rules could undermine the possibility of obtaining quality feedback, which is necessary for making important decisions in the country.

Experts, such as Timofey Nestik, Head of the Laboratory of Social and Economic Psychology at the Institute of Psychology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, also note that without clarification, the law makes it difficult to conduct telephone surveys, which often serve as a channel of communication between citizens and the authorities.

While representatives of telecom operators argue that the new rules are necessary to combat fraud, big business expresses concern that this will lead to unjustified costs. Operators, in turn, state that the introduction of labeling requires significant investments in infrastructure.

Thus, the new call labeling rules may not only complicate the work of sociologists, but also lead to significant financial losses for research companies, which will ultimately affect the quality of data collection on the state of public opinion in Russia.

Read more on the topic:

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Mandatory call labeling criticized in banks

The government is developing numbers of measures against telephone scammers