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California Bans Mobile Phone Spam
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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The article also says that he signed bills to fight junk fax and expidiate do not call lists. Sounds like a great step forward for privacy and anti-stupidity laws!
Why not make messages only be accepted from known "hosts" (phone numbers)? Rather like /etc/hosts.allow, but for mobile phones.
Does such a system exist?
I just wanted to invite everyone to use my brand new web site www.spamcalifornianscellphones.com to send out any ads for your compan... wait... awwwww shit.
So what does this ban?
Californians in California spamming other Californians in California?
Californians in California spamming other Californians anywhere?
Californians in California spamming anyone in California?
Californians in California spamming anyone anywhere?
Californians anywhere spamming other Californians in California?
Californians anywhere spamming anyone in California?
Anyone in California spamming Californians in California?
Anyone anywhere spamming Californians in California?
Anyone in California spamming anyone in California?
Anyone in California spamming anyone anywhere?
And several other permutations?
Stop planned cell phone spamming campaign and instead walk up to people with bullhorn explaining how they can win free stuff and save thousands on their mortgage.
The article did not state the penalties involved if you are guilty of spamming pagers and cell phones, but the sad fact is that I'm sure they are woefully inadequate.
In Michigan, there's a law on the books concerning junk faxes. Yes, it's illegal to send unsolicited faxes of any sort in the state of Michigan. The penalty? $500 or the cost of the supplies used in receiving the fax *which ever is less*.
C'mon, what a toothless law.
Spam, junk faxes all fall into the "weather" category in as much as "everyone complains about the weather, but no one seems to do anything about it". Well fellow consumers, unlike the weather, you *can* do something about it.
It's quite simple. Don't do business with companies that engage in such practices. Let them know, and vote with your wallet.
Unfortunately, sheeple continue to tolerate practices that they readily acknowledge as annoying.
Vote with your wallet.
Anyone anywhere spamming Californians anywhere.
Though I think it's a safe bet to say that it doesn't cover it.
May we never see th
Unlike spam, which uses easiyl forged e-mail headers making it near impossible to trace, text messenging goes through the phone system and CAN be traced back to the orginiator rather trivially. I'm assuming SMS can't be easily forged. This makes such a law much much easier to enforce, as the phone company can simply look to see where the messages are coming from, and make it easier to fine the appropriate people.
you're absolutely right. some of us implement this with procmail and various other filters already. it works 100% of the time. it is the future. now i'm going to spoil it. we'll all spend more time on keeping the white lists current than deleting spam.
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
I have a Nokia 8250 with AT&T, and I've only gotten one or two "spams" from AT&T itself. Doesn't seem like it's a huge problem at this point...
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.
Right, except that you don't get charged long distance when it's a text message.
Some carriers charge per text message. Verizon and ATTWS are the only two that I can recall that do not charge you for incoming text messages, and I might be wrong about Verizon...