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FEC Permits Anonymous SMS Spam
crm114 writes "The Washington Post is running a story about the Federal Election Commission's decision today to waive the requirement that SMS broadcast messages indicate their origin..." And it'll only cost you ten cents to read each one. For what it's worth, you can read the agenda item which describes the issue before the FEC. It's rather interesting because it includes drafts of two possible responses by the FEC, depending on which way the commissioners actually voted at today's meeting. Although the company seeking the opinion suggested alternatives like providing a toll-free phone number in the message (preserving the spirit of the campaign finance disclosure rules), the FEC doesn't appear to have taken them up on it.
Certainly here in the UK, the calling party pays for calls and text messages and it costs nothing to receive either. As a result, mobile (cellphone) numbers are handed out freely to all and sundry, with mobile phones being used much more conspicuously by everyone aged eight upwards.
While it does not justify spamming, the idea that SMS spamming where the receiving party actually has to pay for the junk is one that wouldn't be tolerated here, and shouldn't be tolerated in the US or anywhere else.
Political urban legends never die. They just move over to Slashdot and infest the minds of right wingers.
Al Gore never claimed he invented the Internet. Read and weep.
I work for ATT Wireless, if you don't think it's right to pay for receiving spam text messages you should sign up. There is no fee for receiving sms or e-mail messages on your tdma or gsm phone like other carriers. I don't know how they expect to mass spam sms customers, we're sure as hell not going to let them use our network for it.
Erm... geeze, that's very darn harsh... In Australia at least, SMS only costs the SENDER money, it's free to receive them.
Although there are the cases where you request information from a service, and they cost (I assume), although they are things you've explicitely asked for... how can it be legal to charge someone to receive messages on their phone they don't want?
I have received a couple of pieces of spam SMS here... but they didn't cost me anything to read and delete them straight away...
This decision has nothing to do with anonymous SMS. It only waives the requirement that a political message tells who paid for it.
The first paragraph of the article:
"A decision by federal election regulators to exempt text-based wireless ads from campaign disclosure rules has critics warning that consumers could find their mobile phones subject to a flood of political spam as campaign 2002 kicks into high gear."
Here in Argentina SMS is free for receiving messages, but not for sending. I guess in most of Europe this is the same.
:)
But think it like this, maybe if SPAM takes time and money intead of just time, then it could be seen as something really bad for everyone and then it could be used less because anyone sending it will be seen as evil?
Anyway, the only SPAM I have is from my phone company and not very often.
As per the article: SMS=Short Messaging Service. As per cellphones, an SMS message is simple a message between cellphones or other wireless/cellular-type communication devices. Some companies also use DSM (Digital Short Message) same idea, but it is tied to an email address which can be used to send a short message to a cellular device.
Being a current ATT Wireless employee myself, I know how this is. It's very easy to SPAM cell phones. That's why it's a good thing AWS doesn't charge people to get text messages. Cingular charges $0.10 for each message, sent or received. That can really add up if you're getting quite a lot of SPAM.