One of the first bills introduced in the US Congress would make it a criminal act to send a solicitation to a wireless device without that individual's express permission. Democratic Representative Rush Holt has been one of the most vocal opponents of spam and first introduced this bill at the end of Congress last fall. However, the legislation is questioned both by the wireless industry and anti-spam crusaders.
"With the wireless industry moving to build spam out" of its infrastructure, said online privacy consultant Ray Everett-Church, "that is going to be a lot more effective than a new law."
Holt could not immediately be reached for comment. The UK is not currently considering legislation banning mobile phone ads.
Setting standards Everett-Church, co-founder of the anti-spam organisation, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email (CAUCE), said Holt has introduced legislation "before the system has been built to allow this problem to occur".
In November, the Wireless Ad Association released a list of industry guidelines that said "The WAA does not condone wireless targeted advertising or content (push messaging) intentionally or negligently sent to any subscriber's wireless mobile device without explicit subscriber permission and clear identification of the sender."
The WAA defined push messaging as including audio, short message service (SMS), email, multimedia messaging, cell broadcast, picture messages, surveys, or any other pushed ads or content. The guidelines advocate customer control of personally identifiable information, or PII.
This endorsement of "opt-in", meaning a consumer must offer specific consent before information can be sent to his or her device, puts the wireless industry much farther down the road to privacy than the larger Internet, Everett-Church said. He said advertisers want to make sure people actually read wireless ads and don't dismiss them the way junk email is dismissed.
Banning spam WAA chairman Tim DePriest said the industry must be careful as "wireless advertising has the potential to cause irreparable harm, expense to the customer, and undermine the value of an important communication line between customers and advertisers."
