The Feature reports, a South Korean government agency says three and a half times as many complaints about unwanted mobile messages as it did about spam to computers. Excerpts with edits and my comments added:
The Korean Information Security agency says in the first 10 months of 2004, it received 244,151 complaints about unsolicited text messages and calls to mobile phones, compared to just 78,063 complaints about spam e-mail, seven times more than in 2003. A KISA official went on to tell The Korea Times that junk mail to phones now outnumbers e-mail spam, a trend that's expected to continue. Mobile spam in South Korea takes on two forms - the familiar unwanted text messages, and automated voice calls. Blocking the unwanted voice calls can be problematic, as firms using them aren't required to comply with users' demands to be removed from their lists. There is pending legislation, however, that would outlaw all automated calls "that fail to obtain prior agreement" — a move that hasn't stopped too many e-mail spammers.It's hard to tell if mobile spam really outnumbers e-mail spam in South Korea from the number of complaints in generates. A likely scenario is that not only are users more resigned to e-mail spam and have better technology to deal with it, but also that mobile spam is far more intrusive and offensive — and not to mention costly — than on the desktop.
Takeaway : Operators and service providers must protect their users from spam, otherwise mobile messaging will be rendered useless. Likewise, marketers legitimately using text messaging and other mobile services must carefully orchestrate their campaigns, making sure they're sending them only to users who have asked for them, and also making it easy to stop receiving the messages. I agree with the data and the recommendation -During my recent visit to Korea, I received 90% junk messages in my mobile, and service providers and legislation can prevent spam( as countries like Singapore have shown)!!
|
