You know those calls you get – ‘Ring ring’ – you pick up, there’s a pause and then ‘Hold for an important message?’ Like that?

That’s phone SPAM. And the mobile version is on its way.

"Cellphones are becoming the latest target of electronic junk mail, with a growing number of marketers using text messages to target subscribers in Asia," says a Reuters report here.

"Mobile phone spam has yet to approach anything like the volume of the e-mail variety, but the problem is growing in a region where the average user sends as many as 10 SMS (short message service) messages a day."

Mobile companies were reluctant to talk about the trend, but evidence of the problem abounded on the Web site of NTT DoCoMo, Japan’s biggest mobile phone company, says the story, going on:

"The site carries cautionary words about a junk message regarding the need for B-negative blood for a child’s operation, and instructions to forward a chain-mail or face financial consequences. The phone company also warns of messages claiming to come from DoCoMo asking people to send money to a particular bank account. Individual users face difficulty blocking such messages because of their random origins, although DoCoMo lets users set accounts to receive only messages from specified sources."

SMS spammers in Japan typically find their prey by generating at random the e-mail style addresses used for text messaging in the country, accfording to a DoCoMo spokesman.

But if you’re thinking MoSPAM will never catch on to the same extent as online SPAM, maybe you should think again,

The DoCoMo spokesman said SMS messages, spam or legitimate, "also tend to receive immediate attention in Asia," adds Reuters.

"People like to receive messages," it has DoCoMo saying. "They think it’s cool. When you get an SMS message you deal with it immediately, but for e-mails it just feeds into your e-mail box."

What’s going to happen when the SPAMMERS figure out a way to pollute camera phones?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 3rd, 2004 at 4:57 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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