California Bans Mobile Phone Spam

Posted by michael on Saturday September 21, 2002 @06:59AM from the you-don't-have-mail dept.

Argyle writes "News.com is reporting that California has banned the spamming of pagers and mobile phones with unwanted text messages."

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Re:Does anyone actually GET much cell phone spam? by myspys · 2002-09-21 07:59 · Score: 1, Informative

yes,
but guess it depends on which network you're on and in which country you live in.

know that vodafone here in the uk are SCARILY evil when it comes to sms-spam.
Re:Does anyone actually GET much cell phone spam? by dotgod · 2002-09-21 08:06 · Score: 2, Informative

Maybe it's not a problem at this point...but "[Gov.] Davis said he endorsed the plan because he didn't want unsolicited messages on mobile phones to reach the same level of mayhem that spam e-mails have." The whole point is to nip it in the bud.
Re:Does anyone actually GET much cell phone spam? by Anonymous Coward · 2002-09-21 08:36 · Score: 1, Informative

On Cingular I get approx 2 a month.
Re:California Laws by fmaxwell · 2002-09-21 08:49 · Score: 4, Informative

Here is another example of well-meaning, yet relatively irrelevant laws being passed.

I disagree. This is a valuable, pro-active attempt to keep Californians from being forced to pay for spam sent to their cell phones and pagers.

Remember that, unlike the Internet, there are long-distance charges to call cell phones from out of area. Since spammers are bottom feeders that look for ways to pay nothing for their advertising, the vast majority of the spam would come from in-state. Thus, there would be no question of jurisdiction, extradition, etc. in most cases.