Before you get any ideas about trying to spam your porn or other actual or alleged products to the wireless Internet, the Federal Communications Commission has one message for you: Don't even think about it.
Implementing a portion of the federal CAN-SPAM Act, the FCC has adopted a formal ban on sending unsolicited commercial messages "to any address referencing an Internet domain associated with wireless subscriber messaging services," as the commission put it in a formal announcement at midweek.
"Spam has become the plague of the information age," said FCC chairman Michael Powell during an Aug. 4 FCC public hearing. "It truly frustrates, if not destroys, the powerful experience that some of the new technologies can provide."
CAN-SPAM required the FCC to publish by late this month regulation banning wireless commercial messages unless a wireless customer gave prior verbal approval to the senders in question. The FCC has also set up a list of domain names to be submitted by "commercial mobile radio service providers" that will be made available to the public, saying this would be the most effective way to let wireless subscribers duck wireless spam.
"By prohibiting all commercial messages to wireless phones and PDAs absent affirmative consent from the consumer, Americans can now use their wireless devices freely, without being bothered by unwanted and annoying messages," Powell said. "Further, the creation of a domain name registry of wireless e-mail addresses makes sender compliance easy and inexpensive."
Only Commissioner Michael Copps seemed to have a reservation or two, even as he voted to approve the new rules. While saying he applauded the steps to give consumers power to stop wireless spam, he questioned the commission's deciding to let companies get opt-in approvals that weren't in writing.
"Oral approvals are harder to verify and may pose problems for us in the future," Copps said. "We'll need to monitor that."
