Declaring War on Mobile Phone Spam

RugbyHoe writes "Silicon.com's Will Sturgeon reports that more than two-thirds of mobile phone users have received spam on their cell phones and raises the concern that spam will become as much of a problem on this medium as it is with e-mail. He continues with a warning that many companies that offer downloadable ring tones are guilty of 'harvesting' your phone number. Think about that the next time you think you need to annoy your neighbors with the latest and greatest fiddy-cent ring tone."

Comments

Depends alot on your network.

[rkz]

I have got 3 sim cards the first 2 were on vigin mobile a virtual provider who uses T-mobile's network and both of them got a bucketload of spams, now I've got a O2-UK sim card and that number NEVER gets phone spam.

If you're getting a lot of it now might be the time to change operator

Telephone Consumer Protection Act

[Quietust]

Code of Federal Regulations, Title 47, Volume 3, Parts 40 to 69

Sec. 64.1200 Delivery restrictions.

(a) No person may:

(1) Initiate any telephone call (other than a call made for emergency purposes or made with the prior express consent of the called party) using an automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded voice,

(iii) To any telephone number assigned to a paging service, cellular telephone service, specialized mobile radio service, or other radio common carrier service, or any service for which the called party is charged for the call

Re:Fiddy Cent ringtones???

[cybermace5]

Sucker! ;-)

I make my own ringtones. A *gasp* normal-sounding ring, or an unobtrusive ambient beat with tones designed to be heard in different environments. I got sick of hearing lame ringtones that even an AOL'er wouldn't embed into a web page.

It's easy to do with a basic MIDI editor and a web server you are allowed to set MIME types on. Or load it using this guy's website (Flash required - he's a bit of a freak that way). He doesn't keep your phone number.

UK phone spam

[Darren Winsper]

In the UK, SMS spam is starting to become a real problem, but it seems people obey the TPS system. Register your number at http://www.tps-online.org.uk and say goodbye to your troubles. I registered my number a little under a year ago and I haven't got any spam since.

In Finland

[Anonymous Coward]

In Finland the caller always pays, and it is illegal to send spam or try to sell stuff via sms. No offence but in most countries people are trying to figure out what Americas cellphone companies are trying to accomplish, cause they just dont seem to know what they are doing.

charge the sender

[Anonymous Coward]

In Hong Kong, it costs $ to send sms. So, no one sends spam or has $ to send spam. However, company do pay cellular service providers for phone # (trust me, your cellular service provider sells your # and even your phone record for behavior tracking.) and pay to send message (promotions) to those #. Since it costs $, promotional mesg is not very often.

Against CA Law.

[Zaphod B]

According to California Business and Professions Code 17538.41 et seq., mobile phone spam is illegal and the victim may recover $500 plus court costs should he bring an action against the spammer.