Cell Phone Text Message Spam Ruled Against the Law

In Arizona an appellate court issued a ruling that a 1991 statute making the use of "autodialers" illegal also applies to automated text messages sent to cell phones.

Autodialers have historically been used by telemarketers to pitch goods to thousands of potential customers without the expenses involves by deploying actual humans. Many telemarketers still appear to use autodialers of various sorts, however they usually patch the call through to a human upon connection.

Unsolicited faxes are also illegal under federal law. In general, marketers seem to obey both laws with at least moderate consistency. The national "do not call registry" has also proven to be surprisingly effective against unsolicited marketing. Thus far most spammers have opted to ignore recently passed laws such as the CAN-SPAM act. Not only has it failed to stop unwanted emails, most spammers simply ignore the regulations enumerated in the act.

Cell phone text messages are in many ways similar to traditional spam email. Unfortunately, anti spam programs which have proven so effective at reducing the volume of unsolicited email can usually not be directly deployed against text message spammers.

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