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Privacy Communications Spam

First Lawsuit Against Cell-Phone Spammers 122

Posted by timothy from the go-cat-go dept.
BMcWilliams writes "The PR machine at Verizon Wireless hasn't made any noise about this yet, but the carrier last month filed a lawsuit against some Rhode Island spammers who targeted its cell phone customers with over four million text-message ads for ephedra, penis pills, mortgages, etc. The timing of the lawsuit is interesting, given that the FCC is in the process of hammering out rules governing cell-phone spam. I am told the Verizon litigation is the first of its kind in the USA. My story about the lawsuit, and a copy of Verizon Wireless' complaint, are available here."
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First Lawsuit Against Cell-Phone Spammers More

First Lawsuit Against Cell-Phone Spammers

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  • Reluctant kudos (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SIGALRM ( 784769 ) * on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @06:50PM (#9764880) Journal
    Verizon Wireless hasn't made any noise about this yet, but the carrier last month filed a lawsuit
    In recent months, Verizon Wireless seems to have been doing a decent job protecting consumers from unwanted advertising.

    In addition to their anti-spam [clickz.com] efforts Verizon has opposed the cell-phone directory [slashdot.org]--and in the broadband-whore department, are at the forefront of deploying FTTP [slashdot.org]--which I personally want today. :)

    I'm not a huge fan of VZW--although they do have great coverage, at least IMBY.
    • I am a fan of verizon, however I'm sure this was done becasue they would have to foot the bill. No custoner would pay for spam messages, and verizon would have to foot the bill.
      • "No custoner would pay for spam messages, and verizon would have to foot the bill."

        It's not so much that. It's because text messaging would become so useless with spam that no one would bother paying for it period. VZW charges a few dollars extra for text messaging, and it's still not as popular in the US as in other parts of the world. It's in their best interest as well as the customers' to keep text messaging useful and spam free.
      • Uhh no... Verizon does not pay for text messages.. they are like mail... I (as the ISP) do not pay for e-mail sent to my customers..
        • I think geekoid meant that Verizon would have incurred expenses in carrying the messages which they would have to eat, as customers would refuse to pay to receive unsolicited advertising and could probably succeed in getting the charges waived. Plus, there would be a much larger cost caused by processing all the complaints and reversals. Well-run businesses do not spend money when they see no reasonable expectation of benefit to themselves.
    • The article says their PR machine hasn't made any noise yet, but they really should be capitalizing on this. Maybe it's because most people don't seem to think about the possibility of spam on their cellphone, but they could have called it "proactive customer protection".
      • It's not the first cell lawsuit and it's not the first Verizon cell lawsuit.

        Guess who they dealt with in the past?
        Ralsky. Want proof? [detnews.com]

        This is not some UL/FOAF story - Google "Ralsky Verizon" and you'll get tons of hits...

  • Luckily for us... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Most of the readers at hackingthemainframe.com don't have cell phones!

  • Targetted Ads (Score:5, Funny)

    by mindaktiviti ( 630001 ) on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @06:53PM (#9764918)
    So when do you get my 0.50 cent coupon for a Big Mac when I walk by a McDonalds?

    Big Brother, where art thou? :(

  • Rules (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    >>the FCC is in the process of hammering out rules governing cell-phone spam

    Why is this taking so long? There should be two rules:

    1) don't spam
    2) reread rule #1

    Failure to obey rule 1 results in summary execution by lethal injection.
    Failure to obey rule 2 results in execution by being forced to go to a Britney Spears concert.

    • Re:Rules (Score:3, Funny)

      by Creedo ( 548980 )
      You inhuman beast! Your second penalty is in direct violation of the Geneva Convention!

      If you allow Britney Spears concerts to continue, then the terrorists have won.

    • Re:Rules (Score:2)

      by jd ( 1658 )
      Wouldn't it be easier just to get Brittney Spears to turn Nigeria into one gigantic concert stadium? It would be cheaper in the long run, and would save on all the investigation costs.

  • Credit on your bill? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Saeed al-Sahaf ( 665390 ) on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @06:54PM (#9764924) Homepage
    I don't have a cell phone (yup, there actually ARE people without 'em) but I think there should be a way to get credit for the minutes that Spam costs a receiving cell.
    • I think there should be a way to get credit for the minutes that Spam costs a receiving cell.

      I don't understand why the carrier should be held liable for information transmitted over their network that originates from a spammer. The spammer ought to be held responsible, not the carrier.

      Verizon's lawsuit is in their best interest. Complaints from customers, which will increase unless the problem is addressed, will adversely affect the carrier more than any other party. Though the fault lays with the spamm
      • I don't understand why the carrier should be held liable for information transmitted over their network that originates from a spammer. The spammer ought to be held responsible, not the carrier.

        Because the fact of the matter is that cell phone providers clean up. The cost of providing the service is tiny and quite on par with (if not less than) supporting copper. They don't charge me my regular phone bill by how many people call me, why should they with cell phones? The relative low-cost of supporting ce

        • Because the fact of the matter is that cell phone providers clean up. The cost of providing the service is tiny and quite on par with (if not less than) supporting copper.

          The profit of any given carrier is of no importance. In a free-market system, one has the option to switch providers if one proves to be unsatisfactory; if no provider is acceptable, then one shouldn't have a cell-phone.

          In the business world, there is no correlation between profits and obligations (outside those mandated by law).
        • "Very few spammers are reachable legally."

          Your numbers are off. There are roughly two hundred spammers (not thousands). Most are located in the US (although they use relays from outside the US). Those who are not collect money in the US (at least those who send spam in the US do). Thus, they are reachable in the US...or at least their money is. Even if the spammer walks free, they aren't going to continue to spam if they can't get paid.
          • If it makes you feel good to think that lawsuits can stop spam from Thailand, China, Hong Kong, South America, certain African countries, than I am with you! May I suggest a web site that discusses various technique for masturbation? Because that is what you are doing.
        • Extradition, shmextradition. I'd be quite happy to see those guys handed over to the FSB.
      • Much has been said about this [elsewhere]; e.g., Business Week, Forbes, other PHB publications, and the response has frequently focused upon who should pay and how the determination should be made.
        As of a year or two ago, it was said customers generallly have a white list and a black list and customers can control their message reception based upon those lists. Unfortunately, there are a lot of scenarios where a sequence of events prevents those lists from permitting the correct messages to come through p
    • I don't have a cell phone (yup, there actually ARE people without 'em) but I think there should be a way to get credit for the minutes that Spam costs a receiving cell.

      The answer is simple. My previous provider, Verizon, used to charge me for incoming SMS, although I requested them repeatedly to turn off that feature. Now, I'm with MetroPCS, I don't get as much spam as I used to have with Verizon, and as an added bonus I don't get charged for any of it. The free market did work in this case.

    • Here in the United States, I and many other people still don't have mobile phones. There are many reasons for the slow take up of phones here but spam is not going to help. Resons why spam phone calls are both annoying and successful here include:

      1 We are charged for receiving calls!

      2 Spammers need not pay - if they are calling local, only the receiver pays.

      In the case of local to mobile calls this cross-subsidisation of the landline network by mobile phone customers is a distortion of the market not pre

  • Arms race (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @06:55PM (#9764936)

    spammers will simply call you from offshore countries using VOIP or POTS, they can block the caller ID making blocking very hard for providers

    face it they are scum and a phone is a lot harder to block than IP addresses, the only solution really is to stop SMS entirely, its always the few that ruin it for the majority

    • >spammers will simply call you from offshore countries using VOIP or POTS, they can block the caller ID making blocking very hard for providers

      No problem. Providers will just pull a "Telus [slashdot.org]" and block such messages from countries that refuse to respect the law.

      The answer to that is...?
    • If caller IDs are blocked, wouldn't the easy way to stop it is to allow users to chose whether or not they want to accept SMS and phone calls that are without caller ID information?

      When I got a mobile phone, for some reason all the "friends" of the previous user of that number had their caller ID sending disabled. It was usually easy to avoid accepting calls. Even on that, I get caller ID info without using up any minutes.

    • SMS: spammer pays (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Jadrano ( 641713 ) on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @10:47PM (#9766395)
      No, as far as I know, SMS spam is easier to block (by the network operators, not by the individual users) than e-mail spam.

      The most important point here is that sending SMSs costs something (lower prices for bulk sending of SMS messages are offered, but the typical spammer's business model still won't work, even if they just have to pay ~5 cents per message, it's too expensive for spamming). Then, the fact that money has to be paid also helps identifying the source (as far as I know, the identification for billing cannot be forged, so the telephone companies can find out who spammed).

      In many European countries, SMS has become absolutely indispensable (and a major source of profit for the telephone companies). I read that in the US (at least under certain circumstances) the recipient rather than the sender has to pay for SMS messages - that's really an idiotic arrangement. I think Americans should rather look how SMS has been implemented in other countries than contemplating to give it up and missing the huge advantages it offers (being able to deliver a message to someone who is too busy to pick up a phone, sending telephone numbers etc.).

      I have been using SMS for many years (in Switzerland) and I don't think I have ever received SMS spam.
      • The most important point here is that sending SMSs costs something ...
        Only if you do it from a phone. If you bothered to RTFA, you'd know that most (probably all) wireless carriers have e-mail to SMS gateways, e.g., 1235551212@somecarrier.com. E-mail sent to that address gets transformed into an SMS message. Since the sender uses ordinary e-mail there is no way to charge the sender.
      • Just like the minutes used for voice, both sending and receiving SMS users are charged. However, like the other guy said, if the SMS originates through an e-mail gateway, then only the recipient pays for the message.

        The cell phone companies here in the US get you coming and going, but they take only half as much in each direction. So, in the end, it balances out....sort of.

      • A large part of the reason SMS is so popular on your side of the pond is your voice charges are so expensive. Here nobody thinks twice about calling anyone locally. Last time I was in Europe people had to think about making a call to decide if it was worth the cost. SMS is cheaper so you do it.

        I have SMS on my phone, and I do use it. However the difficulty of entering text on a phone makes it a bad idea for most things. (however when I need to send something like a IP address it works good because t

  • Verizon is definitely doing the right thing here.

    Although they are not my carrier, I hope that other carriers will take notice and support them on this issue.

    No one should ever have to pay for advertising unless without their consent. If you want to spam me then get my permission and pay me for it. If I agree then pay for part of my bill, not just the cost to send your message, but more so that my service is cheaper.

    • I almost want to say that anything a carrier does to eliminate spam should be praised, but in some cases- the carrier is the one sending the spam. How to handle that?

      If my phone bill was reduced from someone paying me [slashdot.org] (not my carrier) to send me messages, I still don't think I'd be signing up for it. I'm already advertised to nearly everywhere I go, I'd hate to get ads (even if I am comp'ed) on my cell or PDA.

  • disable text messages (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I simply told my provider (Cingular) to disable reception of text messages. Now I get no interruptions, no upfront cost, no message cost.

    Texting is for kiddies.

  • Whitelisting is not the answer (Score:5, Interesting)

    by cephyn ( 461066 ) on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @07:03PM (#9764998) Homepage
    I hate whitelisting. Its just a poor way to protect the end user. There are many instances, both for email, or cell phones where a whitelist will block an important transmission. To push whitelisting as the solution is a cop-out. It increases litigation, but creating good, informed, solid and unambiguous laws is the best way to stop spammers.
    • There is no point in creating laws if they aren't going to be enforced.

    • I hate whitelisting. Its just a poor way to protect the end user. There are many instances, both for email, or cell phones where a whitelist will block an important transmission.

      But it seems to work pretty well in Japan. DoCoMo lets you choose to block all mail from the Internet or from other mobile phones/terminals, then whitelist domains/addresses you want to receive mail from (up to 40, IIRC). I'm currently blocking Internet and Vodafone, with Vodafone-using friends whitelisted, and my spam has drop

    • I'd rather have white-listing than another round of useless laws and more tax dollars spent chasing the tails of spammers.

      White-listing isn't a cop-out. It's a great way to keep people you don't want to hear from from bothering you. If I want to take *your* call, I'll add you to my list. Otherwise, piss off.

      Max
      • For you that's fine, and I have no problem with that. But if thats the ONLY option available, it sucks. What if I give out my number to someone to call me, and I don't have their number? What if they have to call me from a different phone? Phone interviews....emergency calls from whoknowswhere...these would all be blocked if they aren't on the whitelist. That's why I think whitelisting is crap -- in the real world there's too many times where I've needed to be able to accept phone calls from a number I didn

  • seems less than profitable (Score:3, Interesting)

    by iamdrscience ( 541136 ) on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @07:05PM (#9765011) Homepage
    I'm not sure cellphone spam is such a great prospect from the spammers point of view anyways. You can't easily do nearly the same amount of volume. Based on the numbers from the article, these guys were only sending about one message every two seconds (~43,500 per day). Which may seem like a lot, but it's nothing when contrasted to a lot of e-mail spammers that are sending out millions of e-mails everyday.

    Also, I would think that the conversion rate would be lower as well. I mean, with e-mail spam I can understand that a few people out of a million might see and open the message and decide to go to a company's buy whatever product the e-mail is selling. With cell phones, I don't really see the same thing happening as much. With e-mail, someone can click on a link and make an impulse buy in under 5 minutes. With cell spam, the person sees the message and then has to go out of their way to pursue the product.
    • A lot of cellphone spam that I get is of the type that encourage you to phone a premium number, whether it's a semi-legit "you might have won a prize" scam, all the way to the despicable "you have a new voicemail, call premium number blah blah blah now".
      • By the time it becomes clear that someone is running a scam, they already have their money, and likely have moved on.

        If the company running the premium number didn't receive payment for, say 90 days, there would be time to investigate complaints and suspend payment to the scammers.

        Yes, it would make it harder for a legitimate startup, but many businesses have the 90 days issue.
    • With e-mail, someone can click on a link and make an impulse buy in under 5 minutes. With cell spam, the person sees the message and then has to go out of their way to pursue the product.

      y'mean like calling a toll number to receive more information on the product or something?
    • only sending about one message every two seconds (~43,500 per day).

      Only???

      Remember, on that cold April day in 1994, Canter and Siegel "only" sent out 4-5,000 messages to Usenet.

      Spammers are like cats. You let 'em get away with something once... and you're screwed.

      Go Verizon.

  • Geez! (Score:5, Funny)

    by iamdrscience ( 541136 ) on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @07:10PM (#9765044) Homepage
    For the last time, my girlfriend and I are both happy with the length of her penis already (zero inches by the way)! Stop sending her these messages!

  • Another type of spam... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by howman ( 170527 ) on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @07:16PM (#9765087)
    I have a NTT DoCoMo cell phone, and although I use white listing to only allow the few people who actually have my private number to reach me, another form of spam goes on here that does not involve e-mail or text message.
    Here seedy companies, usually based in Tokyo phone your number and hang up after 1 ring. They then bank on the fact that you will call them back figuring you missed an important call. The number that comes up on the display is for a pay per min, up front minimum charge service. When you don't pay, they actually send goons to get the money out of you.
    Granted it is difficult to block numbers comming from a specific area code, especially if you live in that area. I fortunately do't live in the area where most of these calls come from, so seeing a different area code is a pretty good indication it is spam.
    While white listing is a bit of a pain, and as others have pointed out may block important information you were not expecting from comming through, the amount of spam I was getting previous to turing it on was mental. something to the tune of 20 a day using a e-mail address on my phone that there is no way a name generator could come up with. I was limited to 25 characters for my name and I used a random set of numbers and letters as well as the few non-basic characters I was allowd to, and still within 20 min of setting up the account I had spam.
    Now if only I could get a spam filter plugin for my phone things would be great, though I do believe the filter should be hosted on DoCoMo's end and configureable by myself.
    • If you are getting spam so quickly after setting up such an account, either the company you are using is selling the accounts or there is someone on the inside that is leeching them, like that AOL account, and I've read people suggesting that is what happens with Hotmail.

      If I ever saw that kind of thing, I would drop them in a hurry because such a company cannot be trusted.
    • Don't know what you did wrong, but I have had an NTT DoCoMo imode address attached to my phone for more than a year (the same address) and have yet to receive a single spam. This is even after giving it out to my friends. And my address is basically myname@docomo.ne.jp - I actually couldn't believe it was available.

      However in regards to the callback scam you mentioned, I do get about 2 of those a week.

    • In japan, the toll calls can come from the same area code as normal ones? That would seem quite ripe for abuse, if you could declare any number to be a toll call...

      Now the other way I could read that is that they aren't true toll calls which, for example in the US would be something like 1-900-555-1212) but simply extortion schemes that try and arbitrarily charge you money.

      Or perhaps, there is yet another possibility I have not thought of....
  • In their usual way, Nigeria appears to be leading the way in the causes of spam, but in this case with a slight twist [bbc.co.uk].
    • A BBC reporter says experts and mobile phone operators have been reassuring the public via the media that death cannot result from receiving a call.
      They should also note that people are working on new technology to send to Nigria if they don't freaking CUT IT OUT!!!!!!

      Why does this remind me of the goodtimes virus?
  • This should be very easy to do. Company's like AT&T assign email addresses to cell phones like 15555551101@attws.com or something similar. I am surprised I have not received any text message spam yet as one could easily run a script to email through every number in America *@attws.com for some product.
    oops, i said too much.

    GroupShares Inc. [groupshares.com] - A Free Stock Community
  • Now if they can only do something about that FAX spam that keeps getting sent to my Cellphone as well I will be happy.

  • Most cell phone providers have limits on the number of text messages a person can send and receive. If your cap is 50 for the month, and you get 4/day, you're 70 messages over your limit. If they charged as 20 cents a message (which some do) that's an extra $14/month.

    This doesn't seem like much, but that works out to an extra $168/year (that's enough to buy a new phone every year) per person. Now imagine how many people are getting these messages out of the 4.7 million messages that were sent!

    Carri

    • Most cell phone providers have limits on the number of text messages a person can send and receive.

      Over here (Norway), you can send and receive an unlimited amount of text messages; the only limits are the storage capabilities of the phone and actually getting a subscription that specifically limits the number of text messages you can send out (usually on cell phones used by children where mommy and daddy are footing the bill).

      You pay to send text messages, obviously, but you don't have to pay anything

  • Most of the cell phone spam I get... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jd ( 1658 ) <(imipak) (at) (yahoo.com)> on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @08:38PM (#9765684) Homepage Journal
    ...is from my cell phone provider! And I bet you that the FCC regulations (when they do finish them) make the cell phone companies exempt.


    Bah!

  • I got cellphone spam from this very company, and had tried to post it in the 'Ask Slashdot' section some months ago. {2004-02-26 00:25:32 Experience suing cell phone spammers? (Ask Slashdot,Spam) (rejected)}

    I did a DNS and phone directory search for the company (The Phoenix Company, Pawtucket , RI), called up the phone phone numbers listed. I also filed a complaint with my cell carrier, and with FCC. I got a form letter response from FCC last month, and thought that was the end of that... till I saw this p
  • I guess there's some loophole for sending text spam without being charged, because wouldn't the spammers get charged bigtime for sending millions of texts? I would think charging for messages would deter spamming in the first place. And do people really get charged for recieving messages? how stupid is that? the person who sent it got charge already (right?)

    • Re:no charge? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Zaphod B ( 94313 )
      You don't honestly think some underpaid kids in Hyderabad are sitting there wearing out their thumbs actually sending a text message from a cell phone, do you?

      You can send text messages through an e-mail gateway. 9175551212@yourcarrier.net, 9175551213@yourcarrier.net -- and since certain blocks of telephone numbers are reserved to cell phone carriers, and the assignments are published by The North American Numbering Plan Administrator [nanpa.com], you can text 917555nnnn@yourcarrier.net and get probably 8500 successe

  • I don't know how bad spam is in the US, but in Japan, things have improved markedly over the last year or so. Not so much by the anti-spam law passed two years ago--with predictably negligible effect--but NTT DoCoMo, the largest keitai carrier, has been very proactive in fighting spam itself. Not only do they have user-settable black-and-whitelisting by source (carrier/Internet), domain, or address, they have an address where you can report spam to them, and they shut down spammers' connections pretty qui

  • why won't this work? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by zmollusc ( 763634 )
    Put 20c on the cost of sending any text, credit 10c to the account of any cellphone recieving a text. Spammers would have to spend more and recievers of spam would be compensated for having to press delete. Telcos get another 10c a text and will be careful that every text carried is paid for because they will lose the 10c a text if some hacker sends 1,000,000 unpaid text to himself.
  • They better not spam me on Peak hour charges! Then they really will feel my wrath!!! But anyways, somebody has got to do something about Spamming. First the mail, then the telephone, the internet, and now my cellphone? People buy cellphones for privacy and now we don't even have that? We should start a do not call list for CellPhone users. It's not violating their first amendment right. It's excersing our rights to freedom of information (or lack thereof if we don't want to listen to it.)

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