Advertising via SMS Redux

This is yet another thing that we posted on forever ago, but is now getting some mainstream attention.  The Washington Post has an article up with some interesting figures about just how many junk text messages people are receiving.  As we and the article mention(ed), unsolicited text message ads are illegal by virtue of the fact that thet cause the recipient to incur charges.

Here's a little bit right from Kim Hart's article

More than 1 billion text messages are sent every day in the United States. U.S. consumers are expected to receive about 1.5 billion spam text messages this year, up from 1.1 billion last year and 800 million in 2006, according to Ferris Research, a San Francisco market research firm. Those are conservative figures; some estimates are far higher. Verizon Wireless said it blocks more than 200 million spam text messages every month, and cellphone companies are ramping up efforts to shut them out by taking spammers to court and by using more sophisticated filters.

 

That first number is a key reason why spam messages are and should be so important to the mobile phone carriers.  Text messaging (also referred to as SMS) is really useful, but still isn't seen by a lot of people as being a necessity.  If the amount of spam outweighs the usefulness, people will stop using SMS.  There are a lot of people (I would be one of them) who would block text messaging entirely if the spam level got too high - and I have unlimited text messaging.  The lost revenue from a massive text messaging boycott would be staggering.  If all of the carriers had as aggressive a policy of litigation against SMS spammers as Verizon, we would probably have the problem a lot more under control.

So if you're receiving spam SMS, let your carrier know.  You may need to take some time to figure out who you actually need to talk to for it to make a difference, but if we all start letting our carriers know that a) this is a problem, b) we want it corrected and c) that we're willing to help then maybe they will help us.  If we let them know where these messages are coming from it'll help them in being able to attempt litigation on our behalf.

I know, I know, I rail against my mobile phone provider on a regular basis, but I'm extending an olive branch here.  We need to work together.  We need out mobile phones and our carriers need us to pay for them.  Let's get on the same team here and we can make the entire industry better.  If we can an industry with probably one of the worst reputations for customer support to a point where it is operating with an unprecedented level of cooperation with its customers that level of cooperation could and should be imitated by other companies in other fields.

So AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, AllTel and all the rest (sorry, but I'm only calling out the top 5 by name today), let's figure out a way to work together and hit the text spammers where it hurts - in the wallet.

Note to readers:

If any of you guys get unending spam text messages why not comment with some info, like carrier, number it comes from (usually a 5-digit code) and the company name, if there is one.  If we can get enough responses we can a) post a list so that other readers can know and avoid them and b) maybe have a big fat list of offenders to submit to some of the mobile phone carriers.

Thanks, guys and gals!