FCC rules spam illegal for mobile devices, sort of

The FCC have ruled that marketers must have explicit permission from anyone with a wireless device before they send them spam, a ruling eerily similar in scope to the CAN-SPAM act for email which has been largely ignored by spammers. The devil's in the details on this one - this ruling only applies to email sent to your phone from the carrier. Most carriers have a special email address they use for your phone (i.e., 2061923343@carrier.com); checking email from your normal account isn't affected. Most importantly, SMS text messages aren't affected at all, which is pretty much what people think of when you say "mobile spam." The long and short of it is that the ruling is basically a loophole closure for the CAN-SPAM act, and doesn't really do much to protect us from all the text message spam on our phones. Hey, at least the FCC is trying…