On cell phones and land lines, spammers invade

Phone solicitors can now fool your caller ID.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
An underhanded trick called address-spoofing worked so well for e-mail spammers that now telephone solicitors are trying to copy their success.
A new twist in technology allows solicitors to fool your caller ID, making it appear that the number they are calling from belongs to someone else. That might permit them to fool you into picking up the phone -- whether you want to receive their spiels or not.
A service called Star38.com went online Sept. 1, offering a Web-based product initially aimed at bill collectors and private investigators.
Instead of the number that originates the call, the caller ID function on the recipient's phone displays whatever digits the caller punches in.
The company contends it's all legal, allowing callers "to be anyone, any area code, at any number at anytime, simply, easily and cost-effectively."
Claim questioned
That's a claim one industry expert questions.
"The use of any type of technology that deceives the consumer into thinking the call comes from someone other than the real caller is not only unethical, but it certainly seems to violate federal law," said Rozanne Andersen, general counsel for the Association of Credit and Collection Professionals in Indianapolis.
A message left on Star38.com's answering machine seeking comment from the company wasn't returned.
Phone spam is rapidly growing -- and not just through spoofed caller IDs.
With cell-phone text messaging gaining popularity, spammers have increasingly been sending out short spam messages touting porn sites, body enlargement products and get-rich-quick schemes.
Because phone spam doesn't use the Internet, it isn't covered by the CAN-SPAM Act that Congress passed late last year.
But Congress directed the Federal Communications Commission -- which regulates telephone services -- to come up with some sort of policy to address phone spam.
Ban issued
The commission acted in July, banning the sending of unauthorized text messages to mobile phones unless the recipient had given his or her permission.
But here's the rub: The line between what the consumer authorizes and what is unsolicited is mighty gray. If a company can show a business relationship with someone, no matter how tenuous, courts have generally been reluctant to rule that the communication is unauthorized.
Big retailers and TV shows are increasingly running promotions and contests via text messaging. If someone answers one of those promotions or casts a text message vote in a poll or for a performer in response to a popularity contest, he or she establishes a business relationship and, in effect, agrees to receive future messages.
A bill giving businesses the right to solicit customers for seven years after a business transaction passed the House of Representatives in August and is pending in the Senate.
Fighting back
But cellular providers are fighting back.
On Aug. 30, Verizon Wireless, the nation's largest mobile phone operator, won a permanent injunction against a phone text spammer from Rhode Island who dropped more than 200,000 unsolicited messages advertising drugs, mortgages and adult Web sites to Verizon customers in June.
Be it by text or a direct call from a solicitor who can now fool your caller ID, phone spam is not going to be easy to control.