US Cell Phone Users Discover SMS Spam

The Llama King writes "It's a bigger problem in Europe and Japan/Asia, but as SMS text messaging or "texting" becomes more popular in the United States, its users are discovering that spammers like it too, according to this Houston Chronicle story. Cell phone companies are trying to stem the spam flood before it starts, worried that users will turn off their phones, thus denying providers revenue."

only two things are certain in life....

[sweeney37]

"Unlike Internet spam, wireless phone spam comes with an annoying beep on your phone and a direct price tag," said Janee Briesemeister, senior policy analyst with the Consumers Union in Austin. "Consumers aren't just getting an annoying message they didn't want, they are paying 10 cents for it."

Perhaps because this will directly affect people's pocketbooks we'll see faster legislation. Not unlike taxes, when people start losing money, the louder they become.

Mike

We call it "honey messaging..."

[jordandeamattson]

In our family, we call it "honey messaging...", as in, "Honey will you pick up a gallon of milk on the way home?" or "Honey, remember that I love you..."

SMS is great for sending short and sweet messages that requires no acknowledgement, and would be intrusive if sent.

It really is instant messaging for cell phones...we love it. And having the ability to have things SMS to me (for example, updates on my flight from United) if fantastic.

simple solution

[way2trivial]

charge the sender of all SMS's 5 cents
give recipients a penny credit on their bill

SMS spam it isn't a problem in Finland

[Anonymous Coward]

Since it has been outlawed many years ago. I haven't received a single spam during the time I had a cell phone (4.5 years).

Re:simple solution

[garcia]

see, the cell phone companies don't want that. They want people to become addicted to SMS like they are addicted to Instant Messaging.

They want SMSs to cost money so that they can make more.

How many plans do you see have free SMS outgoing? Exactly.

Re:Easy Solution

[DdJ]

Actually, IMHO one of the main uses of text messages is to get messages from people you've never spoken to.

For example, when I'm visiting a city I might send email to friends of mine in that city asking them to send me a text message with their phone number in it, so I can just hit the "respond" button to call them back rather than entering in the number myself. It's basically a way for other people to send their contact info directly to my phone.

That option would be better than nothing, I suppose, but it'd remove whole categories of usage for me.

Without some sort of coping mechanism, if spam rises to 5 or 10% of my message traffic on my phone, I'll just get that feature removed from my calling plan. I've already disabled call waiting and other features other folks seem to take for granted.

Two notes

[mgcsinc]

I make two first-hand notes about SMS spam:

1. I live in Europe, have had an SMS-capable cell phone for two years, and have never received a single piece of SMS spam. I credit this with never having given to any logo/ringtone website my phone number, and let me tell you, I much prefer not getting spam to having a nice ringtone.

2. I have never understood the US SMS pricing scheme; the idea that one would have to pay for messages received completely baffles me, and I think it threatens to be the single largest reason that SMS spam will have such a profound effect on US consumers.

Easier Solution

[drinkypoo]

Providers should just not charge per message. It's ludicrous that you have to pay more for one shitty, short text message than you have to pay for a full minute of voice communication.

hunting down spammers is a waste of time...

[shams42]

...when you can just go after the companies that hire them.

Now I know this might not work for international stuff like the Nigerian scam, but it should work for domestic spam. And though I don't yet recieve SMS spam, the vast majority of my e-mail spam seems to originate from domestic companies.

I mean, in order to sell a product or a service, you have to provide your vict^h^h^h^h, customers with valid contact information so that they can purchase the product. Jon Q. Fucktard can't purchase herbal viagra or a "real university degree" without knowing where to send the check.

Removing the financial incentive to hire spammers will be far more effective than trying to control it through technological means.

Yeah, the easy solution?

[Moderation abuser]

Add layers of unnecessary complexity to phone software. Sure, that's the way to do it.

The sane solution is to make the sender pay, just like they do in the rest of the world...

Re:Easy Solution

[mumblestheclown]

Technological solutions to social problems deny the full possibility of technology.

Poor Rational

[Sturm]

It's exactly this sort of logic that has prevented any meaningful progress in the War Against E-mail Spam. Even though you don't see it on your bill, E-mail spam DOES cost the end user in money and time, just like SMS spam. Spammers would have you believe that spam is "free" and of course their favorite argument, "It's easy to just hit delete". But, as many of us know, this argument is misleading. Certainly this line of thinking would have some validity if we just received one or two pieces of spam a day. However, the truth of the matter is that for someone who makes $20 or $30 an hour, a half an hour a day to wade through 100s of E-mail spams beccomes quite costly. All of the sudden, 10 or 20 SMS spams a day at $0.10 a pop look cheap in comparison. And this doesn't even begin to touch upon the added costs in equipment, bandwidth and personnel that ISPs have to procure to store, send/receive and try to stem the flood E-mail spam. Those costs almost certainly will be passed on to the customer as well.
We need to try to get rid of ALL spam. Whether it's SMS, E-mail, dead tree, fax or whatever.

Re:Easy Solution

[hether]

So how does it work for someone who sends the messages to a phone via email? Since I don't have a phone this is how I send my husband messages. I imagine it wouldn't say I'm sending from a particular phone number, so could he store my email addresses in their to compare against that?

BTW, I see this email message to SMS message feature as both a benefit and a problem. The problem is that since with the account we have SMS messages can accept only 250 characters at a time, if someone accidentally (or to spam) sent a regular email messages to an SMS account it would be divided up into a dozen or so little SMS messages holding each part. And we'd have to pay to receive each part.

I don't think we need legislation

[rutledjw]

What we need is technology to address this issue. Right now it's possible to send tons of SPAM e-mail and make it very difficult to trace. SMS implementations need to have a definate REAL return address.

At that point, companies can trace SPAMMERS, block them, or sue them in court. Today, half the problem is identifying who these people are because e-mail is so loose on the addressing issue.

Why would you want legislation after debacles like the DMCA (which almost all Senators hold up as their crowning success) and with idiots in office like Senator "Disney" (D-SC) and Orin Hatch (R-UT)?

Re:Yeah, the easy solution?

[FyRE666]

Make the sender pay with what? A $0.05 credit card charge? Mail them a bill? Require them to establish an account beforehand?

If you make the sender pay, then you're severely reducing the usefulness of the service.

Please tell me you're joking here! You're honestly asking how a mobile phone user could pay to send an SMS message (data) when they already pay to make calls (more data). Pretty simple really, isn't it? You bill them per message - it's what we all do in Europe and it makes SMS spam prohibitively expensive (not to mention the fact it's also illegal and carries huge penalties now).

never mind the spammers, worry about the providers

[jchristopher]

Cell phone companies are trying to stem the spam flood before it starts, worried that users will turn off their phones, thus denying providers revenue.

Yeah, right! It would be NICE if we only had to worry about true "spammers" sending unsolicited SMS. In my market (Southern California) Cingular is spamming its own users with marketing messages! Talk about stupid business decisions.

I cancelled my SMS service and let them know why. Cingular claims it's "opt-out", but strangely three different methods they recommend (return SMS, phone call to CSR, website) have failed to get me off their list.

Oh well at least my voicemail still works. My contract is up soon... maybe some readers can recommend which providers do and don't spam their own users?

Re:Yeah, the easy solution?

[Lord Azrael]

Europe's SMS is significantly less useful than the US.

NACK. The key feature is "sending a short message" without disturbing the recipient but enabling him to read your 160 characters message if he has the time.

I find it extremely useful the way it is in europe and using SMS for 5 years now i have received 1 (read: ONE) SMS-Spam as far as i can remember that and this is definitely due to the fact, that the sender has to pay for it!

That's absolutely the way i want it to be, anything else will lead to the simptoms we have with spam emails: you need a software to get rid of the unwanted stuff.

Re:Huh? You have to pay *extra* for SMS?

[skinfitz]

Yes you DO pay for incoming calls with a cell phone.

Not in the UK you don't.

I still find it hard to accept that in the US people actually put up with paying to RECIEVE calls - but SMS as well??? That is just utterly idiotic!!! I wonder what total moron thought THAT would be a good idea? - So lets see - you dont like someone so you send a kabillion SMS messages to their cell phone by using a free SMS gateway and bankrupt them.

No wonder the whole mobile phone system is backwards in the US - I'm amazed anyone bothers with cellphones at all.

Re:Costs

[Moofie]

Uh, yeah, because moving around teeny little text files is a task that requires absurd investment in infrastructure.

It's data. It's digital data. If it's a text message or one millisecond of voice, it's freakin' data.

Re:Yeah, the easy solution?

[FyRE666]

I've used SMS in the US for 3 years now and I have received 0 (read: ZERO) SMS-Spam and this is definately not due to the fact thta the sender has to pay for it, since they don't!

Well let's see if you're still saying that in a years time when the scumbags cotton on to the fact they can send junk to your phone for nothing. It's so obviously a bad idea I can't believe you're actually trying to defend your phone company charging YOU for the pleasure of receiving crap.

The sh*tbags that push junk mail/spam only do so since it's a cheap racket for them to make some fast cash. If they had to pay for each email/text message, they'd move on to conning little old ladies or some other scummy occupation.

Huh??

[mercx]

> It's a bigger problem in Europe and Japan/Asia

I live in Asia and have had an SMS-capable handset for over 5 years now, and I've probably received about 30 pieces of SMS-spam in that time and from only 3 or so distinct numbers.

We use a sender pays model; this is not a problem in Asia, and the extrapolation that because we send more SMS messages we have more SMS spam is incorrect.