Text-message spam on the rise

WASHINGTON — The spam messages that have long plagued e-mail inboxes are now finding victims through a 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, Va., 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. More than 1 billion text messages are sent every day in the United States.

U.S. consumers are expected to receive about 1.5 billion spam text messages this year, up from 1.1 billion last year and 800 million in 2006, according to Ferris Research, a San Francisco market-research firm. Those are conservative figures; some estimates are far higher. Verizon Wireless said it blocks more than 200 million spam text messages every month, and cellphone companies are ramping up efforts to shut them out by taking spammers to court and using more sophisticated filters.

Spam is often a nuisance, but more malicious messages can lead to a new form of fraud called smishing, a variation of a spam e-mail attack known as phishing. Smishing attacks disguise themselves as legitimate messages from e-commerce or financial sites such as eBay, PayPal or banks, and seek to dupe consumers into giving up account numbers or passwords.

Most text messages are sent without any form of encryption, allowing tech-savvy spammers to intercept the messages and get access to personal information, said Larry Ponemon, founder of the Ponemon Institute, a privacy and security research firm.

As of 2005, federal agencies banned companies from sending unsolicited commercial e-mail and text messages to mobile phones. To receive promotional material or updates, consumers typically must text a message to a five-digit short code to opt in to the service.

But Simeon Coney, marketing director at anti-spam software maker AdaptiveMobile, said spammers are breaking the law, bombarding cellphone users with unwanted mail that could infect phones and BlackBerrys with viruses.

Consumer complaints about text-message spam have been sporadic, according to the Federal Trade Commission, the FBI and Consumers Union. But Coney said his firm is starting to see "overall increases in mobile-spam traffic."

The rise of spam could spoil trust in text messaging as a mode of communication, according to Charles Taylor, a Villanova University professor who studies online and mobile ads. "Trust is crucial for an ad to be effective, and the minute you start clogging up cellphones and BlackBerrys, it's a real turnoff and an invasion of your personal space."

The revenue generated by data services, such as text messages, has grown along with the consumer demand. About 20 percent of wireless carriers' total revenue now comes from the delivery of text messages, said Roger Entner, senior vice president for the communications sector for IAG Research.

Each text message typically costs between 10 and 20 cents, although the four largest U.S. carriers — AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile — are rolling out flat-rate plans for text messaging.

The carriers said they have rigorous filters to block spam, and they allow customers to block messages from certain numbers. They also try to remove charges for unsolicited spam.

"We have every incentive to stop spam texts from getting through, since we end up footing the bill for a lot of it," said Verizon Wireless spokesman Jeffrey Nelson. "The longer a service like text is out there, the bigger the bull's-eye gets."