There is no question that most people in the direct marketing industry have struggled with the concept of cost-shifting as the prime reason that e-mail spam is a problem. Very few people understand the complex costing issues that impact the prices charged for Internet access when e-mail, and spam, increase.
But a new form of spam — or unsolicited commercial messages — has finally appeared on the marketing scene in a way that promises to make the issue crystal clear for everyone. Text messages sent to digital cell phones are now being used by marketers who believe they’ve found the Holy Grail of cheap and effective advertising.
First, a technical explanation of the medium:
The digital cellular network actually converts voice conversations into digital signals — effectively those ones and zeroes that all computers use. As a result, it is also possible to send text messages on the same system, and almost every modern cellphone is capable of receiving these text messages. The system is known as SMS, or Short Message Service, and is available on most cellphone systems in the world. In order to make it easy for users to send messages to subscribers, cellphone companies have Web sites with special forms where a user can enter a cellphone number and message, and the cellphone company delivers it. A good example is at http://www.mobile.att.net/mc/personal/pager_show.cgi
But most cellphone companies have an alternative method of sending messages. They have created gateways from e-mail to their SMS systems, so that each cellphone has an e-mail address. And in order to send a message to most cellphones, all a user needs do is send e-mail to cellphone_number@cellphone_company. This of course leads to the abuse of the system.
How the SMS system can be abused:
Because of the way that telephone switches work, telephone numbers are assigned in blocks of 10,000. For example, in Manhattan, all 10,000 numbers from 212-625-0000 through 212-625-9999 belong to the same phone company, and are programmed into one Central Office Switch. And the same is true for cell-phone numbers. In Phoenix, AT&T has at least 50,000 subscribers, and so they have at least 5 blocks of numbers assigned to them. And of course all 10,000 numbers in the block are cellphones.
Now if I know of one cellphone number in a block, by definition I know of another 9,999 numbers. So having identified the fact that 602-625-xxxx is one of the AT&T Phoenix cellphone exchanges, I now set up my e-mail system to send my advertising message to 6026250000@att 6026250001@att etc. Voila! 10,000 prospects. Unlike e-mail addresses which cannot easily be guessed, these cellphone numbers are all real, and in use.
So what’s the benefit?
In traditional direct marketing, I do my best to send my promotion to highly targeted prospects. I have a selfish reason for doing so
Network
