BlueCasting - Unsolicited Email Meets Telemarketing

A new direct marketing technique relies on BlueTooth wireless technology to annoy people with intrusive advertising.

Many new models of cell phones and PDA's are equipped with BlueTooth. Using the protocol it's possible to broadcast the presence of another device wanting to communicate with yours. A few bill-boards are doing just that - and sending commercial messages to the recipient if they accept the request to communicate.

This new marketing technique combines the hi-tech nature of spam - with the "talk to me now" nature of telemarketing. Using BlueTooth for marketing isn't pervasive enough to present a serious problem, but spam was also a novelty in it's early days.

While it can stop spam mail for POP3 accounts accessed via cell-phone, SpamButcher can unfortunately not offer any protection from these wireless advertisements.

The threat here is that BlueCasting has the potential to virtually wreck BlueTooth as a communication protocol, much as spam email has substantially damaged the usefulness of email.

Already, there's talk of BlueTooth equivalencies to spam mail blocker products.

Also, since BlueTooth is a short-range broadcast protocol, there's real risk for anti-spam, "gorilla" activity. If I knew my neighbor was sending me spam email, how long do you think his windows would remain unbroken?

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