Microsoft to make users pay for mobile phone spam

The Inquirer ^ | 07-01-2002 | Tony Dennis

[JameRetief]

Microsoft to make users pay for mobile phone spam

There's gold in that, there spam

By Tony Dennis, 01/07/2002 18:09:08 BST

MICROSOFT HAS LAUNCHED a cellular-enabled 'Instant Messaging' service into Europe through MSN, its Web portal. The catch is that cost of the service will be bourne (via reverse billing) by the mobile users themselves.

Given that both Microsoft's MSN Mail and Hotmail email services are badly afflicted by spam messages, this could prove extremely costly for participants. Especially since a since premium rate (reversed billed) message can cost as much as £1.50 [pounds] a time.

Once spammers discover your mobile's email address, it wil be hard to stop reverse-billed messages arriving. According to the Financial Times, Microsoft will be doing a 50:50 split with network operators over revenues the new services generate.

The aim of the new service is to enable standard Web users to exchange text (SMS) messages with those equipped with GSM handsets (which all boast send/receive text messaging capabilities). MSN has reportedly already signed up a number of European operators in Belgium, Denmark and Switzerland to the services but hopes to soon sign up a couple of 'biggies' in the shape of T-Mobile (formerly One2One in the UK) and Spain's Telefonica Moviles.

But users are likely to react in horror if spam starts tipping up on their handsets and they are forced to pay for it, too.

Free SMS services on Web sites are dying out because mobile network operators have begun to charge each other to deliver SMS messages (so-called interconnection charges). Nonetheless free SMS services still survive -- thanks mainly to advertising income. Indeed, the INQ uses ICQ for its own free, bi-directional SMS messaging and associated INQ sites like WAP Insight offer free Web-to-mobile text services. µ

[Denver Ditdat]

Ouch! Paying for spam? I think I'd be stuffing my cell phone up someone's low colonic spam delivery system...

[staytrue]

no doubt microsoft's next trick will be to fund a start up company that sends spam and oh by the way, microsoft will sell it's customer database to them too.

[billybudd]

This is difficult to believe. Who would pay for such a service? If what the article says actually happens, then Microsoft will lose a lot of money with its investment in a system that nobody will use. I don't see how this could benefit Microsoft.

[captain11]

Microsoft won't do this without providing restrict list features, allowing users to limit addresses from which they will accept messages delivered over the air interface. Everything else will be tossed out at the messaging hub.

If they do not provide straightforward restrict list features, they'll have a litigation nightmare.

[Myrddin]

Many cellular users already have SMS enabled. My wife and I can send text messages phone to phone and website to phone. E-mail to phone works as well. Verizon Wireless charges 30 cents to deliver the message. SMS is not ubiquitous. It only plays where you have digital service and an SMS gateway with connectivity to your local cell tower. When you are in AMPS (analog) coverage, SMS messages don't get delivered. Even in a digital coverage area, you might not get it delivered.

There are other technologies waiting in the wings to offer better and more ubiquitous messaging than SMS.

[AndyJackson]

I disagree. If avoidance of spam requires any user action - users will throw the system away. Secret of service in high tech, is to give what clients want - painlessly.

[mattdono]

I agree. This is either 1) totally made out of whole cloth or 2) a lack of understanding of what the technology.

And, I guess there is a third point...if MSFT were to do this, they would be complete business morons, as they would lose business and lose business BIG! However, we have certainly seen that, if anything, MSFT has a propensity to price their products VERY cheapy. In fact, if I am not mistaken, one of the main arguements of their detractors is that they are predatory pricers.

Nah, this story doesn't wash.

[hobbes1]

I think the catch is in the difference between IMing, and spamming. You get spam in the mailbox, IMing occurs in RT....

[mattdono]

May be, but I haven't seen this reported in the technology-related news. I haven't seen/heard this on TechTV, which [he shamefully admits] I watch with regularity.

While I don't disagree with the RT aspect of IM spam, I don't think that this is something that MSFT is doing. Quite frankly, I think the story is a bunch of B.S.

[captain11]

I disagree. If avoidance of spam requires any user action - users will throw the system away.

I must politely disagree. Your reasoning says that users prefer unlimited amounts of spam to an easy-to-use restrict list capability. If that's the case, then spam will always be a problem, no matter how good the passive filtering. If on designated business or professional email accounts, you could set up a restrict list via an easy-to-use secure web interface with reasonable defaults, you'd use it. This is especially the case if anything that slips through the filter costs you, as might be the case with wireless spam.

In corporate applications, many end users could use pre-configured restrict lists (e.g. corporate domain and key partner domains).