FCC Bans Cell Phone Spam
Mobile solicitors are now subject to CAN-SPAM law and must get user's OK before sending messages.
Grant Gross
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Federal Communications Commission has voted to outlaw all commercial text messages to mobile phones and pagers unless the device owner has given permission, and to subject violators to the CAN-SPAM law.
The FCC's mobile phone and pager spam rules will be tougher on spam than the law that gave the FCC authority to act.
Containing Spam
When Congress passed the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing (CAN-SPAM) Act of 2003, it also required the FCC to adopt rules for mobile-phone spam. CAN-SPAM allows spammers to send unsolicited commercial messages to computer e-mail accounts until the recipient opts out of receiving e-mail from that sender.
However, the FCC's recent actions require that commercial entities sending text messages to mobile phones and pagers get customers' opt-in permission before sending messages.
Commissioners argue that mobile-phone spam is particularly harmful to consumers because they often have to pay for the time it takes to delete the message. "We've all seen what spam has done to the PC world," Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein says. "Nobody wants the same thing to happen to mobile phones."
Violators of the FCC regulations will be subject to penalties under CAN-SPAM, which allows fines of up to $6 million and up to a year in jail for certain spamming activities.
Spammer ID
To allow senders of mobile-phone and pager messages to identify subscribers of their services, the FCC requires that service providers submit those domain names to the FCC. The domain names, in turn, will be included on a list that will be made publicly available. No individual subscriber addresses will be collected or included on the list.
FCC Chair Michael Powell, in voting to approve the restrictions, called spam "the plague of the information age."
CTIA-The Wireless Association praises the FCC's action, calling it a "consumer-friendly decision."
MessageCast, a firm that sells software to enable the sending of commercial messages to mobile phones and other devices, also praises the FCC. MessageCast's software requires opt-in permission from consumers before sending messages, says Royal Farros, the company's CEO.
"Every cell phone owner is in support of that action," Farros says. "It's a good thing for consumers. I think there would be revolts in the streets if it didn't happen."
