AT&T Spam SMS Campaign for "American Idol"
Written on Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Legislation covering mobile marketing is in any case insufficient, as with legislation covering most new technologies. However, it was AT&T themselves who had set some regulations regarding mobile marketing, which they have now broken.
Mark Siegel, a spokesman for AT&T Wireless, said the message was meant as a friendly reminder. “We want people to watch the show and participate,” Mr. Siegel said. He added, “It makes perfect sense to use texting to tell people about a show built on texting.”
Mr. Siegel said the message went to subscribers who had voted for “Idol” singers in the past, and other “heavy texters.” He said the message could not be classified as spam because it was free and because it allowed people to decline future missives.
“It’s clearly marked in the message what you need to do if you don’t want to participate,” he said. “It couldn’t be more open and transparent.”
Sounds pretty much like SPAM to me, whether the message was free or not. (In fact, it would be even worse if they had charged their users, but I presume they knew this, which is why the SMS were free). Otherwise, if they had obtained the permission of the participants, and this was thus a legitimate form of marketing why not send these as regular SMS messages?
I'm sure most of you our side of the Atlantic will agree it is SPAM. But it shouldn't even come down to personal judgement. If you don't have permission from the participant (via an opt-in mechanism, which it sounds like they didn't), then you're SPAMMING! It's as simple as that!
..and I completely agree with Mr. Cox.Richard Cox, the chief information officer for Spamhaus, a nonprofit antispam organization based in Britain, countered: “It’s absolutely spam. It’s an unsolicited text message. People who received it didn’t ask for it. That’s the universal definition of spam.”
In general, sending unsolicited advertisements to phones has been more frowned upon — and far less common — than sending e-mail ads. That is in large part because recipients and senders of texts pay for the service either piecemeal or in bulk; in general, the more you send and receive, the more you pay.
Mr. Cox said that in Europe, AT&T could wind up in court for sending such missives because they would violate the law.
Just because network operators have all the power, doesn't mean mobile users should put up with this behaviour. I particularly liked this comment from an AT&T user:
Another user named Nick Dawson wrote: “Seriously AT&T? Did you justHopefully, if more people complain about such campaigns, things will get better in the up-to-now relatively spam-free mobile world.
text me twice during a meeting to tell me about ‘American Idol?’ Very
professional!”
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