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Software and Technology by
Hari
Posted on Mon, Aug 28, 2006 at 10:49 IST (last updated: Wed, Jul 16, 2008 @ 21:15 IST)
I've talked about the growing menace of e-mail spam, forum spam, blog spam, referrer spam and all other kinds of spam we receive in abundance all through the year. Most of the spam we encounter on a regular basis is related to the internet. What I've not talked about so far is the spam we receive in our mobile phones - namely SMS spam. I was completely taken aback at the amount of SMS spam I've received over a period of three or four months when I cleaned out my message inbox yesterday.
What is really disturbing about SMS spam is that the ease with which spammers are able to get hold of mobile numbers and the relative lack of effort required in sending out SMS spam. Worse still, 90% of the spam comes not from third parties but from the providers themselves. Thus, as a Hutch user, I keep getting repeated solicitations to download caller tunes and ring tones, offers to make me rich by answering a simple question, offers to buy certain products and win a lucky prize and so on. To add to this nonsense, I've recently been getting "call spam" - pre-recorded messages which bombard me by calling my mobile number. And all this from the service providers themselves. The latter kind of spam made me curse vehemently using language which would be heavily censored on any family television show.
To me, what makes SMS spam insidious is that there's really no way to protect oneself from this nonsense. There seems to be no effective spam filter mechanism on most of the ordinary cell phones and because the providers themselves are involved in this racket, I'm sure there won't be any cooperation from their side. I'm not sure about the other mobile providers and the situation in other countries but I've found Hutch to send out far too many SMS messages for comfort. Is there a way to protect me from annoying rubbish of this kind? Probably the solution would have to be the consumer redressal forum.
SMS spam is closer to becoming a serious source of trouble than pure e-mail spam because being bombarded with SMS messages all day long can really choke up mobile phone memory which is limited. A mobile instrument is far more accessible and immediate than plain e-mail which magnifies the problem tenfold. Add to this the fact that every time you receive a call or a message there is a significant drain on the battery charge. I think I can safely say that by receiving all these SMS messages the battery life is reduced by a day or two. Again, the time spent in deleting the rubbish from the message inbox is wasteful and unnecessary. The other factor is the annoyance factor. The beeping message tone whenever you receive a message has the potential to be disturbing in the most inappropriate situations possible. Does this mean one just shuts off and turns on the instrument from time to time? How inconvenient is that to a mobile user?
SMS and caller spam is disruptive because it reduces the efficiency of mobile usage by forcing users to turn off the instrument or reduce it to silent mode just to avoid getting message and ringing tones at inappropriate times. It takes up valuable memory space and clutters the message inbox. It puts an incremental drain on battery life by forcing users to have to delete them from time to time. More than anything else, it's absolutely annoying when the source is the provider himself and the theme of these messages is the same over and over again.
One thing I should acknowledge is that mobile providers will be smart enough not to send out too many of these messages in case consumers start protesting actively and bringing an end to the nonsense. They will continue to send out the maximum possible messages they can get away with below the threshold limit though. Which in turn leads me to believe in the fact that there are enough people who respond encouragingly to these advertising messages and help the providers in making money.
As long as the cost of sending out spam is negligible and there is at least a 10% chance of making money through sending out spam, there will always be people who indulge in it. The only way mobile customers can fight back is by actively protesting to the service providers and threatening legal action. There can be no justification for sending out a battery of regular message spam to mobile users even when the provider indulges in it.
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