It’s not bad enough that my snail mailbox is filled with spam. My email inbox, in spite of my best efforts, still gets a certain share of spam. On my house phone, in spite of my best efforts, including subscribing to every anti-telemarketing list I can subscribe to, I still get the occasional spam call.
But today I get a fucking spam text message on my CELL PHONE! FREE MONEY! PRIVATE GOVERNMENT GRANTS! If I end up getting charged for cell spam, I’m gonna fight it to the Supreme Court!
I get people leaving me messages on my cell phone like this:
“Uh. . . Hi, um, this is Bob. I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for a few weeks and haven’t been able to. Anyway, I’m new in the area and I’m getting to know everybody. I was wondering if you were interested in getting together soon to talk about the siding on your house. I’ve got this new product. . .”
Do you pay for incoming text msgs? I know for a fact that telemarketing calls to user-pays devices like cell-phones is illegal in Canada and the U.S. Bruce_Daddy: Are they always voicemail, even with your phone on? I can’t believe there’d be a loophole like that.
If someone sent me crap like this on my phone, even if I didn’t have to pay for it, they’d better not be traceable, or I’m advertising the competition. On their door. In Krylon, neon green.
I got the same thing a couple of days in a row at about 2 in the morning. Of course, my phone beeped to tell me about the exciting new herbal viagra I can order, even though the entire message doesn’t come through due to the character restrictions.
Verizon says there’s nothing they can do about it, aside from turning off the text messaging feature entirely.
I can beat that: my 14-year-old half-brother has apparently been getting numerous spam text messages on his cell phone, but he didn’t even know it, because they were IN SPANISH! Sent from e-mail addresses in Argentina!
Poor deluded hormone-ridden teenager that he is, he was thinking they were love notes from some girl in his class. He’s probably sorry now that he asked me to translate.
I read in a Direct Marketers Assn newsletter (I’m a member) about attempts to target spam to cell phones. This is apparently possible because of the cell system. With your phone announces what area you’re in you can be hit with highly targeted commercial messages all the time.
“Hungry? McDonalds at Hollywood and Vine…just 2 blocks east! Mmm!”
“Need Gas? Exxon Peachtree has the cheapest gas in a four block radius!”
It is legally ambiguous to spam pay-to-recieve services. IANAL, but IIRC, much of the case law comes from the banning of spamming fax machines. The courts’ reasoning was that since it cost money to get a fax (in toner and paper), nobody could send unsolicited faxes. The Latin term is cost-shifting: If the spammer effectively shifts the cost of the spam onto the recipient, the recipient probably has a good case against the spammer.
Of course, it takes time for the courts to catch up with technology. Cellphones and email are, to the courts, `cutting-edge shit.’ I predict that in five years, maybe ten, it will be illegal to spam email accounts and cellphones.
I predict that in five years, maybe ten, it will be illegal to spam email accounts and cellphones.