Mobile phone spam

Mobile phone spam is a form of spamming directed at the text messaging service of a mobile phone. It is described as mobile spamming, SMS spam, text spam or m-spam.

As the popularity of mobile phones surged in the early 2000s, frequent users of text messaging began to see an increase in the number of unsolicited (and generally unwanted) commercial advertisements being sent to their telephones through text messaging. This can be particularly annoying for the recipient because, unlike in email, some recipients may be charged a fee for every message received, including spam.

Mobile phone spam is generally less pervasive than email spam, where in 2010 around 90% of email is spam. The amount of mobile spam varies widely from region to region. In North America, much less than 1% of SMS messages were spam in 2010, while in parts of Asia up to 30% of messages were spam.

The lesser and geographically uneven prevalence of mobile phone spam is attributable to the higher cost (to spammers) of and technological barriers to sending mobile messages in some areas, and to law enforcement in others. Today, particularly in North America, most mobile phone spam is sent from mobile devices that have prepaid unlimited messaging rate plans. While the rate plans allow for unlimited messaging, in reality the relatively slow sending rate (on the order of magnitude of 1/s) limits the number of messages that may be sent before an abusing mobile is shut down.

Criminality and law enforcement

SMS spam is illegal under common law in many jurisdictions as trespass to chattels.^[1] Jurisdictions with specific SMS spam regulation and fines include Australia,^[2] the EU, and the United States. In the US, violators face substantial costs.^[3] For example, in a 2008 settlement, the violator agreed to pay $150 to each spam recipient.^[4] In a 2010 class action settlement of Satterfield v Simon & Schuster, a case that reached the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, defendants agreed to pay $175 to each spam recipient.^[5] In response to Satterfield, entities who make money sending mobile phone spam formed the Mobile Advocacy Coalition (MAC) to lobby the government to legalize that activity.^[6] In the US, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has expanded Phone Spam regulations to cover also Voice Spam—mostly in form of prerecorded telemarketing calls—commonly known as robocalls;^[7] victims can file a complaint with the FCC.^[8] In California, Section 17538.41 of the B&P Code bans text message advertisement.^{[9][dead link]} Consumers can sue on an individual or class basis per a private right of action against unfair business practices.^[10]

Enforcement in small claims court

The FCC released an order in Aug, 2004 that reiterated that SMS spam messages to cellphones are illegal under the existing Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and also under the CAN-SPAM Act. Each such unsolicited message received without permission entitles the recipient to take the sender to small claims court and collect a minimum of $1 for each violation. They said this in 2003, and reiterated it in 2004: 'In 2003, we released a Report and Order in which we reaffirmed that the TCPA prohibits any call using an automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded message to any wireless telephone number. We concluded that this encompasses both voice calls and text calls, including Short Message Service (SMS) text messaging calls, to wireless phone numbers.' ^[11]

The 2003 TCPA Order (18 FCC Rcd at 14115, para. 165 says: “Both the statute and our rules prohibit these calls, with limited exceptions, ‘to any telephone number assigned to a paging service, cellular telephone service, specialized mobile radio service, or other common carrier service, or any service for which the called party is charged.’ This encompasses both voice calls and text calls to wireless numbers including, for example, short message service (SMS) calls, provided the call is made to a telephone number assigned to such service.” (citations omitted).

Factors complicating SMS spam reduction

Fighting SMS spam is complicated by several factors, including the lower rate of SMS spam (compared to more abused services such as Internet email), which has allowed many users and service providers to ignore the issue, and the limited availability of mobile phone spam-filtering software. Filtering SMS spam at the recipient device would be an imperfect solution in markets where users are charged to receive messages, as the user may still be charged for the message once the provider sent it, even if software on the device blocked it from appearing on the device's display. This problem is not present in most of the world outside the U.S., however, where users are not charged to receive messages.

Providers may fear liability should a legitimate message of an emergency nature be blocked. Nonetheless, many providers voluntarily provide their subscribers technical means for mitigating unsolicited SMS messages.^[12]

Countermeasures

There are several actions and strategies that can help reduce SMS spam.

Legal actions can be effective and remunerative.

Many carriers (such as AT&T^[13], Verizon, and Sprint in the US) allow subscribers to report spam by forwarding the spam messages to short code 7726 (spells SPAM on a traditional phone keypad) (33700 in France). It's reported that 1/2 million spam reports in France resulted in the disconnection of 300 spammers, and many more cease-and-desist orders were sent.^[14]

Some spam countermeasures depend on detection, and there are two developments in that area: a GSMA pilot spam reporting program, and the development of Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) standards for mobile spam reporting. In February 2010,^[15] the GSM Association has announced a pilot program that will allow subscribers to report SMS spam by forwarding it to short code '7726' which spells "SPAM" on most phones. AT&T Mobility, Korea Telecom, and SFR announced their participation, and a large number of other mobile operators are expected to join after the pilot period.

The Open Mobile Alliance is expected to complete its "SpamRep"^[16] standards which will allow users of mobile devices to report email, SMS, MMS and IM spam using a 'This-Is-Spam' button or menu item, as users of wired email systems are now doing.

Another helpful SMS spam-reduction technique guarding one's cell phone number. One of the biggest sources of SMS spam is number harvesting carried out by Internet sites offering "free" ring tone downloads. In order to facilitate the downloads, users must provide their phones' numbers; which in turn are used to send frequent advertising messages to the phone. Wording in the sites' Terms of Service intended to make this legal have not survived court challenge.^{[citation needed]}

Another approach to reducing SMS spam that is offered by some carriers involves creating an alias address rather than using the cell phone's number as a text message address. Only messages sent to the alias are delivered; messages sent to the phone's number are discarded. A New York Times article provided detailed information on this in 2008.^[17]

Another countermeasure is to use a service that provides a public phone number and publishes the SMS messages received at that number to a publicly accessible website.^[18] Google Voice can be used in this way, but with numbers and messages kept private.

Finally, most cell phone providers offer the option of completely disabling all text messaging services on a user's account. This extreme solution, however, is satisfactory only for those users who have neither the need nor the desire to utilize SMS at all.

In June 2009, three major Chinese carriers—China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom—imposed limits on text messaging in order to crack down on spam SMS. Under the restrictions, a phone number can send no more than 200 messages per hour and 1000/day on weekdays.^[19][20]

In the United States, recipients of SMS spam can file a complaint with the FCC using form 1088, available online at https://esupport.fcc.gov/ccmsforms/form1088.action

See also

• Phone fraud
• Wangiri

References

1. ^ Compuserve v Cyberpromo
2. ^ ": ... mBlox has paid a penalty of AU$11,000". 2008-10-30. http://www.cellular-news.com/story/34379.php. Retrieved 2010-11-20. 
3. ^ Leyden, John (2008-09-23). "Timberland pays $7m to settle SMS spam lawsuit". The Register. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/23/timberland_sms_lawsuit_payout/. Retrieved 2010-11-20. 
4. ^ $150 Per Text Paid to Timberland Text Getters from Lawsuit (2008-09-23). "($150 Per Text Paid to Timberland Text Getters from Lawsuit)". http://www.wirelessandmobilenews.com/2008/09/150_per_text_paid_to_timberlan.html. Retrieved 2010-11-20. 
5. ^ http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ringtone&oldid=407551078#Satterfield_v._Simon_.26_Schuster
6. ^ https://digital.lib.washington.edu/dspace-law/handle/1773.1/450 Mobile Marketing Derailed, pg. 42 (PDF pg. 10)
7. ^ "New Rule Prohibiting Unwanted Robocalls". Federal Trade Commission. 2009-08-28. http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/08/robocalls.shtm. Retrieved 2010-11-20. 
8. ^ "FCC Consumer Complaints". Federal Communications Commission. http://esupport.fcc.gov/complaints.htm. Retrieved 2010-11-20. 
9. ^ "WAIS Document Retrieval". http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/waisgate?WAISdocID=81894110177+0+0+0&WAISaction=retrieve. Retrieved 2010-11-20. 
10. ^ "Mobile SMS Spam Banned in California". http://www.cellular.co.za/news_2002/101702-mobile_sms_spam_banned_in_califo.htm. Retrieved 2010-11-20. 
11. ^ "Slashdot | SMS Cellphone Spam Declared Illegal". slashdot.org. 2004-08-13. http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/08/13/1738251. Retrieved 2010-11-20. 
12. ^ page 23
13. ^ http://www.wireless.att.com/support_static_files/KB/svc/documents/1220912515172.Anti-spam%20FAQ%20080707%20Consumer.pdf
14. ^ "GSMA Launches SMS Spam Reporting Service - PCWorld Business Center". PC World. http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/192469/gsma_launches_sms_spam_reporting_service.html. Retrieved 13 January 2011. 
15. ^ "GSMA to Address Spam and Fraudulent Messaging Threats for Consumers ~ GSM World". 2010-03-24. http://gsmworld.com/newsroom/press-releases/2010/4797.htm. Retrieved 2010-11-20. 
16. ^ "COM SpamRep Documents". Open Mobile Alliance. http://member.openmobilealliance.org/ftp/public_documents/COM/COM-SpamRep/Permanent_documents/. Retrieved 2010-11-20. 
17. ^ Pogue, David (2008-06-12). "How to Block Cellphone Spam". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/12/technology/personaltech/12pogue-email.html. Retrieved January 13 2011. 
18. ^ "JunkSMS.com - Temporary SMS Inbox". http://junksms.com/index.php. Retrieved January 15 2011. 
19. ^ Le, Yu (2009-06-12). "China take steps to deal with SMS spam messages". Reuters. http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE55B1RU20090612. Retrieved 2009-06-14. 
20. ^ Wang Xing (2009-06-13). "You may get fewer spams on cell phones". China Daily. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-06/13/content_8280507.htm. Retrieved 2009-06-14. 

External links

• Postman :Free SMS Spam Filter Android Application
• http://esupport.fcc.gov/complaints.htm
• how to block cellphone spam
• Clampdown on missed call scam, BBC News.
• iDA Singapore :mTouche Fined $150,000.
• Phone Spammer List
• Phone Spammer Discussion