I don't like paying $20/month for our AT&T unlimited texting family plan. After all, it costs AT&T next to nothing to provide SMS services.
I pay because the current IM alternatives don't work. That leaves texting as the polite alternative to the unscheduled phone call. I pay because what I get is worth more than the money I pay.
Or, rather, it was worth more. It's worth less all the time, because I'm getting more text spam like these 595-959 Welcome to Sears/Kmart Shop Your Way Rewards Text Alrts (yeah, "Alrts") ...
Unlike "full number" text spam, AT&T won't accept reports for these...
Instead, AT&T markets "short code" text message services. They charge spammers to spam us, and, I assume, they charge us to receive the spam. Talk about a win-win!
You could try completing the FTC's spam report form for wireless phones, but as of today it's not designed for text message reporting. It's as though the FTC got caught in a time warp @ 2002.
This is only going to get worse. There are now two phone companies in America, and they hate us almost as much as we hate them. They hate us so much they'll drive us to abandon their most profitable service.
We need an alternative to phone company controlled text messages. We need a messaging service that includes spam filtering -- and that doesn't make us sitting ducks for low grade spam. Blackberry did this years ago; maybe when RIM dies in 2013 either Apple or Google will buy their texting service -- and give us something worth paying for. Maybe California will ban text spam and end our spam as a side-effect. Maybe all of the above.
There's an opening here. Help me out Apple, Google, and California!
