InformationWeek reports that Mobile Text Message Spam Doubles. Incidentally being told that something doubles isn't very helpful unless you know the time period over which it happened so you can establish the rate... and this was over the course of 2004.
The most interesting thing in the article which caught my eye was the mention that people won't stand for this on mobile messaging since they have to pay for the messages (in and out). This is interesting to me since technically all e-mail that we send/receive, we have to pay for too. But it is a much broader and abstract of the term since it is part of the bandwidth and hardware allowances people see as part of being online.
But a charge for the actual messages directly and it showing up on your bill causes even those that are the least technically savvy to sit up and take notice.
The article notes that specifically because of these fees, people won't tolerate the spam the same way that they might via email... then why the huge surge? Because it has to reach a breaking point (or a Tipping Point if you are a Malcolm Gladwell fan) before finally it reaches a level after which the demands on everyone (network resources, individual wallets, annoyance levels, etc) have been maxed out and then action will be taken.
If you really want to get a headache though, you have to remember that the ones who can best reduce the spam are the phone companies. And who gets paid for each of those messages sent AND received? Yeah, that would be the phone companies.
So it is going to become an issue of when the money is no longer made due to the amount of customer service issues they have to deal with around it, and with that there are companies who will evolve to fill the niche (and already are) to block/filter the spam at various points in the chain.
As far as I know, it remains to be seen at this point which point along the way or which company is the breakout leader for mobile anti-spam tech.
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