Advertising Sent To Cellphones Opens New Front In War on Spam - washingtonpost.com

Advertising Sent To Cellphones Opens New Front In War on Spam - washingtonpost.com

This is a warning about how the future can be...

The spam messages that have long plagued e-mail inboxes are now finding victims through a much more personal route: the cellphone.

Text messages are the latest tool for advertisers and scammers to target consumers. But unlike junk e-mail that can be deleted with the click of a button, text-message spam costs money for the person who receives it and chips away at the mobile phone's aura of privacy.

"It's so annoying because I get charged every time I get one," said Ryan Williams, 27, of Falls Church, who receives half a dozen spam messages on a daily basis. They ask him to download ring tones, visit questionable sites over his phone's Internet connection or urge him to subscribe to horoscopes or sports-score updates.

Williams downloaded a program that was supposed to block texts from numbers not stored in his phone's contact list, but the junk messages still get through. Spammers even make the messages appear as if they're coming from his own number, so his wireless carrier cannot block them.

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