Laws Against Text Message Spamming

[Robert Levy]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2003-11-13-cell-junk_x.htm' target='_blank'>http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2003-11-13-cell-junk_x.htm</a><br /><br /></div>"Early adopters of text messaging on cell phones are getting a taste of a new, annoying flavor of spam, though it hasn't reached the same volume as inbox-clogging junk e-mail. Regulators and cell phone carriers want to keep it that way. <br /><br />New laws and regulations are specifically aimed at curtailing the tide of unwanted short message service (SMS) spam. It's especially evident in Europe and Asia, where the technology is more widely used than in the United States."<br /><br />This hasn't been a major issue in the US yet, but it's interesting to see how other governments around the world are dealing with it. Check out this USA Today article for details.

[ShivShanks]

This hasn't been a major issue in the US yet, but it's interesting to see how other governments around the world are dealing with it. Check out this USA Today article for details.

Unfortunately this is already an issue for some of us Sprint PCS users. You see Sprint PCS has totally totally brain dead implementation of SMS. It actually uses TCP/IP or normal email for SMS. So one way to send SMS to your device is yourusername@sprintpcs.com or yourno@sprintpcs.com. I've been getting all kinds of junk email on my id which unfortunately keeps interrupting me as text message on my cell phone. I have stopped it from notifying me at all these days with a sound and instead put it on vibrate only mode. The stupid incompetent Sprint folks who run the email gateway for it don't even have a friggin spam filter running on their mail server. Sometimes one wonders if technology is really an advancement. I spend more time deleting spam from my web based email accounts than anything else with it. Death to all the spammers I tell you :evil:

[squirrelist]

You see Sprint PCS has totally totally brain dead implementation of SMS. It actually uses TCP/IP or normal email for SMS. So one way to send SMS to your device is yourusername@sprintpcs.com or yourno@sprintpcs.com.

As far as I know, other carriers also have the same system in place 0005551111@vtext.com works for Verizon. 0005551111@attws.com or something like that is for AT&T. I assume the other carriers have the same thing.

It is kind of surprising that I have never received text spam, considering how many places I give my vtext.com address. You would think that spammers would be able to blanket the cellular prefixes, knowing which blocks belong to which companies (which is about to change)