A rule prohibiting mobile phone spam adopted by the US
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) earlier this month does not
prohibit phone-to-phone text messaging, but FCC officials believe
the new rule, combined with a 13-year-old law, should protect US
mobile phone customers against unsolicited commercial
e-mail.
The text of the new FCC order notes that the FCC's 4 August
action to prohibit mobile-phone spam applies specifically to
internet-to-phone messages addressed to a domain name, not to
phone-to-phone messages using SMS.
The Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and
Marketing (Can-Spam) Act, which US President George Bush signed
into law in December 2003, authorised the FCC specifically to
address mobile phone spam sent to e-mail-style domain-name
addresses.
While the new FCC order covers any internet-to-phone messages
using SMS sent to a domain name address, most SMS messages use the
recipient's phone number to deliver the message. The new FCC order
prohibits the sending of commercial messages to mobile phone
domains without the permission of the subscriber.
At least one critic questions whether the FCC's failure to
address many SMS messages in its latest order could open mobile
phone users up to spam or cause confusion about what text
advertisements are legal. But FCC officials say the 1991 Telephone
Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) already bans most mobile phone spam
not addressed by the recent order.
The TCPA restricts the use of telephones and fax machines to
deliver unsolicited advertisements, and in 2003, the FCC and US
Federal Trade Commission established a national do-not-call
registry with authorisation from the TCPA. In the June 2003 FCC
order authorising the do-not-call list, the FCC also spelled out
rules that should cover most forms of mobile phone spam not
addressed in the Can-Spam order, said Ruth Yodaiken, an attorney
advisor at the FCC.
The FCC's TCPA rules prohibit marketers from using automatic
telephone dialing systems to make calls to wireless phone numbers,
and the rule applies to text messages as well as voice calls,
Yodaiken said. With a rule against sending messages in bulk to
mobile phones, most of the incentive for spammers to target mobile
phones is gone, she added.
And while the prohibition against auto-dialers does not address
SMS-based advertising sent from one mobile phone to another - a
tactic too expensive for many spammers - the national do-not-call
list should cover that form of unsolicited advertising, Yodaiken
said. The list protects people who sign up for it from unsolicited
phone-based advertising, and the FCC rules include text-based phone
advertising on the list of prohibited activities under the
do-not-call list, Yodaiken said.
The rules adopted by the FCC this month should close a hole in
the protections against mobile-phone spam not addressed in the TCPA
- spam sent to mobile phones through e-mail-style addresses,
Yodaiken added. "We're trying to close the net there," Yodaiken
said. "We're hoping we get most of it."
There are 167.6 million mobile phone service subscribers in the
US, according to Cellular Telecommunications & Internet
Association (CTIA). In December 2003, 21 billion text messages were
sent to mobile phones in the US, although many of those messages
were not commercial spam, according to CTIA.
Grant Gross writes for IDG News Service