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FCC Goes After Mobile Phone Spam
Brittany Thompson
Contributing Writer
2004-03-11
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced today its intent to protect cell phones, pagers and other mobile devices from unwanted text messages and emails.
This brings a sigh of relief from mobile phone users and anti-spam supporters alike.
Spam has caused a very real burden online.
Search engines such as Google and Yahoo! are constantly fighting to prevent webmasters from using illegitimate practices to get their sites indexed.
Bulk amounts of junk email have created the need for stricter anti-spam software, which often results in absurdly strict definitions of "spam."
Ever since the United States' federal anti-spam law went into effect in January, certain tactics have been defined as criminal acts. Big name companies such as America Online and Microsoft have joined the fight and made their prevention efforts common knowledge among the public.
View a discussion on this topic at WebProWorld.
Up until now, however, one sneaky technique has been able to hide in the shadows of its more well-known partners in crime: mobile phone spam.
If these three words make you cringe then you have undoubtedly heard of the plague that has spread from cyberspace to mobile phones. If you thought spam was only a threat in cyberspace then obviously you've even been its victim.
And just when you thought it was safe to use your mobile phone…
Thanks to its lower profile, mobile phone spam often slips and slides its way out of the public eye. The United States is less-plagued by this type of spam than Japan and other countries, according to a recent spam forum in Washington, D.C., but nonetheless some of the nation's mobile devices are receiving these unwanted messages.
Hoping to steer things in the right direction before a real epidemic breaks out, the FCC is currently accepting comments on several mobile phone issues and promises by September to offer a technical solution to Viagra advertisements, pornography, telemarketing calls, and other unauthorized messages.
For more information visit http://www.fcc.gov
"American consumers have every right to expect that their cell phones will be spam-free zones," said FCC Chairman Michael Powell. "With this broad proceeding, we comply with Congress' mandate, pursuant to the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, to protect consumer and businesses from the cost, inefficiencies, and inconveniences of unwanted messages sent to their wireless devices.
Discuss this article on WebProWorld, your forum for e-Business news.
About the Author:
Brittany Thompson is an administrator for WebProWorld.com and contributes to the Insider Reports with her regular articles and interviews.
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