ZapitSMS Blog

Jetstar will soon allow passengers to check in with SMS boarding passes.   It is interesting to see that they chose SMS over MMS because it is the technology that more people use and understand.

SPAM comes in a wide range of flavours, email, post, Twitter, Facebook and now SMS. It shouldn’t be surprising, the same reasons that make SMS such a valuable communication tool make it deliciously tempting for spammers and wayward marketers.

In a world where our yearly SMS traffic has breached the 1 Trillion message mark, it was only a matter of time before Governments would start cracking down on SMS SPAM.

US Senators Olympia J. Snowe and Bill Nelson have introduced a bill into congress to establish an SMS form of the Do Not Call (DNC) list. The idea here is to make it illegal to send a commercial text message to a person on the Do Not Text (DNT) list.

While prohibiting SMS SPAM is a noble idea, the ability to fake the origins of an SMS makes the list ineffective. Technology has progressed to the point where consumer services exist to mask and hide the true source of an SMS, even Verizon, a major US telco, runs one. Like most government measures, this one aims to look like something is being done without much thought to the eventual effectiveness of the plan.

This plan could still have some effect. It is likely that the law will include specific penalties for the sending of SPAM texts. While the DNT won’t have much, if any, ability to catch SMS spammers, traditional law enforcement will have an easier time pushing claims into the courts.

It’s unfortunate that marketing overload comes at us from all sides these days, especially when the social benefits of SMS and mobile technology are so clear.

Still, no amount of SMS SPAM could possibly annoy as much as an ignorer.