Opting Out II: Mobile-Phobia on the Rise?
Wireless World, Singapore/Kuala Lumpur, September 2004 issue
The Great Privacy Debate is raging through the media, and its main driver is the spam phenomenon. We’re forced to choose between watching an unchecked flow of garbage and using an imperfect spam filter. In fact, the most common excuse for failing to follow up on something has become the innocent-sounding ‘Oh, did you ask by email? Never saw that – it probably ended up in my spam filter.’
Meanwhile, the Mobile Marketing community holds its breath: will mobile phones end up like PCs? Will unsolicited text messages gradually swell to an unstoppable flood, turning mobile phone users into mobile-phobes?
Here’s one reason I’m still optimistic on the outcome: a handphone is wildly different from any other device. It’s closer to the skin, both literally and figuratively speaking. We carry it always with us, it’s become a necessity. It’s small, ubiquitous and easy to use. In short, it’s everything a PC, even a connected one, is not.
As a result, the spammers’ box of tricks cannot be easily applied to text messaging or any other form of mobile marketing. True, handphone numbers can be harvested like email addresses by scanning the Internet; like email addresses, they can be construed by generating large amounts according to a certain syntax (like eight-digit numbers starting with a ‘9’, in Singapore); and like emails, anything sent to a handphone has to be displayed on a screen.
That’s where all similarity stops. The differences start with the screen itself. Handphone screen sizes, even 3G ones, cannot be remotely compared by the amount of real estate on a PC screen. Then there’s the amount of interactivity. Most spam tries to lead you quickly away from the message itself, to a website where your PC starts to interact with the spammer’s server in a variety of nefarious ways. Your data are stolen, viruses installed, your PC is taken over by the spammer, all of which is not possible with your phone – at least, not yet.
But the biggest distinction that sets handphones apart from all other devices is their sensitiveness to privacy. A handphone is close to the skin, both literally and figuratively speaking. A spam-like SMS enrages us more than a thousand spam emails. Apart from that, spam has shown us what can happen when you let things get out of hand. So people are much more on guard, and the slightest sign of mobile spamming gives cause to a fierce consumer reaction. In short, we’re both better educated and more alert, and that’s the main reason why I’m optimistic.
In fact, consumers seem to be better educated these days than some authorities. Especially the US are busy building an impressive track record of ignorance. First, the infamous Can-Spam Act was passed by lawmakers who clearly spent more time on a catchy name than on the boring business of enforcement. As a result, the world is now blessed with an anti-spam law that sounds nice but to which spammers pay no attention whatsoever.
To add insult to injury, US communications regulator FCC has now regulated that sending commercial e-mail messages to mobile devices is not permitted unless the recipient has asked to receive the correspondence, but that, and I’m not making this up, unsolicited text messages are not included. Let’s get this straight: I’m only allowed to approach complete strangers without their explicit invitation, but not my own customers?
Unsolicited messages are decidedly a thorny issue. They should be allowed, because they’re the lifeblood of new product marketing. But their acceptability depends heavily on the receiver’s interest in the subject of the message, and the medium that’s being used. As long as lawmakers seem to have problems with these subtle distinctions, at least marketers should pay attention to them.
The Great Privacy Debate is raging through the media, and its main driver is the spam phenomenon. We’re forced to choose between watching an unchecked flow of garbage and using an imperfect spam filter. In fact, the most common excuse for failing to follow up on something has become the innocent-sounding ‘Oh, did you ask by email? Never saw that – it probably ended up in my spam filter.’
Meanwhile, the Mobile Marketing community holds its breath: will mobile phones end up like PCs? Will unsolicited text messages gradually swell to an unstoppable flood, turning mobile phone users into mobile-phobes?
Here’s one reason I’m still optimistic on the outcome: a handphone is wildly different from any other device. It’s closer to the skin, both literally and figuratively speaking. We carry it always with us, it’s become a necessity. It’s small, ubiquitous and easy to use. In short, it’s everything a PC, even a connected one, is not.
As a result, the spammers’ box of tricks cannot be easily applied to text messaging or any other form of mobile marketing. True, handphone numbers can be harvested like email addresses by scanning the Internet; like email addresses, they can be construed by generating large amounts according to a certain syntax (like eight-digit numbers starting with a ‘9’, in Singapore); and like emails, anything sent to a handphone has to be displayed on a screen.
That’s where all similarity stops. The differences start with the screen itself. Handphone screen sizes, even 3G ones, cannot be remotely compared by the amount of real estate on a PC screen. Then there’s the amount of interactivity. Most spam tries to lead you quickly away from the message itself, to a website where your PC starts to interact with the spammer’s server in a variety of nefarious ways. Your data are stolen, viruses installed, your PC is taken over by the spammer, all of which is not possible with your phone – at least, not yet.
But the biggest distinction that sets handphones apart from all other devices is their sensitiveness to privacy. A handphone is close to the skin, both literally and figuratively speaking. A spam-like SMS enrages us more than a thousand spam emails. Apart from that, spam has shown us what can happen when you let things get out of hand. So people are much more on guard, and the slightest sign of mobile spamming gives cause to a fierce consumer reaction. In short, we’re both better educated and more alert, and that’s the main reason why I’m optimistic.
In fact, consumers seem to be better educated these days than some authorities. Especially the US are busy building an impressive track record of ignorance. First, the infamous Can-Spam Act was passed by lawmakers who clearly spent more time on a catchy name than on the boring business of enforcement. As a result, the world is now blessed with an anti-spam law that sounds nice but to which spammers pay no attention whatsoever.
To add insult to injury, US communications regulator FCC has now regulated that sending commercial e-mail messages to mobile devices is not permitted unless the recipient has asked to receive the correspondence, but that, and I’m not making this up, unsolicited text messages are not included. Let’s get this straight: I’m only allowed to approach complete strangers without their explicit invitation, but not my own customers?
Unsolicited messages are decidedly a thorny issue. They should be allowed, because they’re the lifeblood of new product marketing. But their acceptability depends heavily on the receiver’s interest in the subject of the message, and the medium that’s being used. As long as lawmakers seem to have problems with these subtle distinctions, at least marketers should pay attention to them.
posted by Jos. at Wednesday, September 01, 2004
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home