CONSUMERS WANT GREATER CONTROL AGAINST MOBILE CYBERBULLYING

New research commissioned by Acision, the world’s leading messaging company, has unveiled some surprising consumer responses to mobile cyberbullying. The research showed that although only a few respondents have experienced mobile cyberbullying, 90 per cent highly favour having complete control over the messages they receive, opting for a preventative measure that can address cyberbullying threats immediately, rather than be caught off-guard.
 
“The rise of mobile cyberbullying is a significant community concern and is one that must be addressed today with an effective solution that provides consumers with a high degree of control in order to manage this problem,” commented Mark Williams, Senior Vice President & General Manager of Acision in Asia Pacific. “Over 90 per cent of respondents indicated that they would sign up for a feature that can effectively filter unsolicited SMS and MMS messages sent by cyberbullies. Our research found that currently only 47 per cent of respondents have tried to prevent receipt of unwanted messages, with limited success.”
 
In the same research, parents were also polled about their concerns regarding text messages received by their children. More than 80 per cent of parents would like more control over what, when and with whom their children exchanged messages with on their mobile phones. Survey figures showed that 40 per cent of parents are discouraged from providing their children with a mobile phone, largely due to concerns about their children receiving messages from inappropriate people, or their children exchanging messages that were unsuitable.  Almost 75 per cent of respondents indicated that they would sign up for a service that would easily enable more control over the filtering of messages, if made available by their mobile network operator.
 
“With children as young as five using mobile phones, parents are often concerned that by allowing their children to have a mobile phone, the children are exposed to receiving texts from inappropriate people, exchanging improper text messages, texting during school hours, being bullied via text and sending text messages to premium numbers incurring a high cost,” added Williams. “To ensure children are protected from such messages, Acision Message Plus can offer a variety of content control features such as black and white listing of telephone numbers, auto-copy SMS to another number or to an email address and preventing the use of SMS during school hours. Of course, it is up to parent and child to what level usage is restricted and who has access to the settings.”
 
Over 80 per cent of respondents also indicated that they would be willing to pay up to US$0.50 for personalisation or parental control features to gain more control over their messaging services and prevent receipt of unwanted SMS and MMS messages.  Acision’s Message Plus platform incorporates personalisation features which enable mobile operators to differentiate their messaging service whilst providing the flexibility and content control functionality subscribers require.

ResearchToluna, the online market research panel provider carried out the research between the 06/11/2009 and the 09/11/2009. The results in this release are from a representative sample of 1,000 mobile phone users aged 18 and above in Australia.

AcisionAcision is the world’s leading messaging company, providing communication solutions for over 300 network operators and service providers globally. www.acision.com/ <http://www.acision.com/>

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