Mobile Spam

Warren Goff
Reporter
02-02-2009

As Internet users become more and more frustrated with the dozens of unsolicited emails each day, Federal Officials are becoming opposed to certain advertising methods. This problem, however, is not large enough to arouse support.

One of the latest innovations in communication, today, is Short-Messaging Services or SMS. It allows friends and family around the world to send information while on the road, in the library, or even at the theatre without making any noise. Unfortunately, many marketers are already abusing this technology with spam text messaging. Gary-Andersen Jones, the managing director of SMS Solutions and gateway provider Quartez states, "a disreputable minority with a 'gravy train' mentality are spoiling the opportunity for those businesses that operate their marketing campaigns with integrity." Two regulatory bodies have authority over the practices of opt-in marketing vs. spamming: The Mobile Marketing Association and The Mobile Data Association. Representative Rush Holt (D-N.J.) created a bill to ban mobile-phone spam. Unfortunately, this bill has virtually no chance of passing in Congress this year, as the support for such a bill is noticeably lacking. This mobile threat to consumers is a mere fraction of the annoyances of spam on the Internet. Business ethics aside, why should a company refrain from spamming with response rates ranging between 5% and 35%?

If consumer privacy is not respected, then there will soon be a significant fall in SMS marketing response rates. Those that are spamming consumers now, will ultimately be those that will cause the loss in revenues for companies spending their time and money for obtaining opt-in users. Regulations must be set now to allow a competitive m-commerce market to flourish.