Service providers hold key to blocking text message spam.

Reports that text message spam is set to increase in 2007 * are no cause for concern, according to content security expert, Marshal. Marshal's Director of Product Management, Bradley Anstis, believes that text message spam will never grow to epidemic proportions because service providers will proactively block spam in a bid to meet contractual usage agreements and minimise customer churn to rival networks.

Unlike email spam, which Marshal's TRACE threat monitoring team estimates at 83% of all email, text message spam will remain a mere drop in the ocean when compared to the number of text messages sent every year.

According to Anstis: "Many people worry that text message spare could become as big an issue as email spam over the next few years, but this just won't happen. For one thing, while sending email spam is free apart from the cost of the Internet connection, each text message spam costs on average 10 pence which makes text message spamming very expensive." Anstis adds: "Another interesting issue which we believe will come to the fore in 2007 is the subjective nature of spare. For example, a text message from a marketer that I regard as interesting could be viewed by someone else as an intrusion. So, service providers will need not only to put in place robust anti-spare controls, but also put in place sophisticated processes to capture data on the specific opt-in programmes that individual mobile subscribers are interested in."

* According to Ferris Research, roughly 1 billion text-based spam messages will be received by subscribers during 2007, up from an estimated 800 million in 2006. This equates to just 0.67% of all text messages.

www.marshal.com