80% of European cellphone users have been hit with SMS spam

If you never gotten a piece of SMS spam you should consider yourself lucky: a new survey conducted by Intrado, Switzerland's University of St. Gallen, and the International Telecommunicaton Union found that over 80% of all European cellphone users reported receiving at least one SMS spam last year (in the US it's estimated to be below 10%). SMS spam is already a huge problem in places like South Korea and to make matters worse, spam is way more annoying to receive on your cellphone that it is on your PC. Even if you're not paying per message you receive, it's not like most users have the option of installing SMS spam filtering software on their phones to automatically catch and delete any unwanted messages.

[Jamaicanbwoydre @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

Ok, Peter, Seriously, its time to go to bed. I'm up studying (engadget is my home page, gimme a break) for my cham final (wish me luck). What's your excuse? We love how ya'll dedicated to the site and all, but, DAMN!!! Almost one in tha mornin posting about cell phone spam? Go to bed. Night yall. keep up the good work with the site, just do it during normal people hours.

[fabulously @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

sms spam sucks, I once cracked up after recieving 15 pieces per day. in my place usually they are Ads ralated to sex or something illegal.

[Dawson Toth @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

This is the most annoying spam possible. Here I am, sitting all lonely, and my phone starts vibrating. I pick it up, ready to feel loved, that I have friends, that people want to talk to me, but instead I see that I can grow a part of my body to larger sizes! Where's the LOVE?!

[umlaut @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

Hmmm I've never received any spam on sms......Im in California on cingular, I've had the same number for about 5 years.

[Ajju @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

Is this the same as the Feb study that they have up on www.mobilespam.org or is this something new?

[Trejkaz @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

Even if you could, installing an SMS spam filter on your phone would be as bad an idea as client-side filtering of spam email. To really work properly, it needs to be on the server side.

[slinky702 @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

One of the best ways to avoid this is to not sign up for any SMS service. I once got a msg from a friend saying that it was a good thing to sign up, so that we could stay in touch. The msg was actually a canned msg sent from the SMS ppl. If you've ever signed up for any kind of SMS service on the internet, make sure to unsubscribe. Since then, i haven't rcvd any spam.

[jazzay @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

couldnt some one with no SMS plan sue someone for this? costing them money even tho they didnt sign up for anything?

[Andrew Stewart @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

If I read this post correct, YOU PAY TO RECEIVE SMS MESSAGES? wtf, in what contry do they charge to receive sms messages? down here in australia you pay anywhere from 15cents to 30cents a message and then its gone, the receive is not charged. Oh, and I have never got t3h spammed!

[karmaghost @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

SMS spam? I'm in America and I've never heard/experienced it. Suckers.

[karmaghost @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

SMS spam? I'm in America and I've never heard/experienced it. Suckers.

[boneyard @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

i have heard about sms spam, but never experienced any in europe (netherlands), i also never heard from any friends / relatives they had any. neither saw anything about it on television or such. i still feel it's hardly an issue here, but that's personal.

this isn't counting some semi "advertising" from my carrier about doubling your pre-paid ammount and such. but you can turn that off if you want to.

[Spyke @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

@karmaghost - that's because the SMS market in the US is still in it's infancy compared to Europe. Also, I believe it's only (fairly) recently that you've had tariffs where you don't pay to receive an SMS?
Don't be under that illusion that no spam today means no spam tomorrow - US companies are somewhat behind European ones in using SMS for marketing, but it will come.
Unlucky.

[Khaytsus @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

I used to sometimes get 5 or more a day, at LEAST 2 a day, every single freaking day. I figure they were using the [e-mail] gateway to do it.

I griped to Cingular, they gave me more SMS for the same price I was paying, plus told me that they were currently transparently testing filtering SMS. I think they must have activated it some time ago, because I might get one SMS spam a week now.

SMS spam is very frustrating.. Especially one month I paid about $4.50 for the priviledge of cheap home mortgages and guaranteed-to-work erectile dysfunction pills.

[Gadget @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

"Even if you could, installing an SMS spam filter on your phone would be as bad an idea as client-side filtering of spam email. To really work properly, it needs to be on the server side."

BS the spam filter I've got at home is the best I've ever seen. Plus why in the world would I trust my carrier to pick and choose whose messages I recieve?

[Apoco:Lips @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

Never got sms spam in Ireland to this day, but got it nearly everyday in Japan 2 years ago, there was quite a bit of phone-email spam too.
Sometimes, early in the morning the phone would ring once, if you called the number you recieved the missed call from; youd be patched through to some Y1000/minute number for phonebill rape-age.

[Cyberwhore @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

I once received "a free ring tone" on my phone which I never opened thinking it could possibly be something dodgy like a virus. To this day I still have a stupid little envelope with a musical note symbol coming out of it at the top of my screen on my SE phone. I know of no way to get rid of it.

My service provider spams me every now and then with useless information and even goes as far as wishing me a Merry Xmas and Happy New Year with an unwanted text message every year. Seems like a stupid time of the year for them to be sending out bulk messages and slowing down their network.

[Tero @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

I think that here in Finland it's illegal to send SMS spam - at least if the sender doesn't have approval from the receiver to send SMS.

And I don't think anyone today pays for receiving SMS?? Sender pays few cents and that's it.

[Finished.Law.School @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

Right when I got off a plane in Bangkok I received 4 SMS spam messages. Fuckers had my number somehow...

[Bob @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

#8...verizon and cingular both charge to receive SMS messages.

[AS @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

Never received any, lucky me. ( Vodafone-PT )

[Spyke @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

#18 - it's when your phone registers with their network. Same as roaming anywhere, the norm is to receive a couple of network spams to "welcome you to ". Vodafone are quite bad for it across Europe.