Cloudmark and AdaptiveMobile Join Forces to Fight Mobile Content Abuse

Summary

Two major mobile companies have banded together to combat mobile spam, and enable carriers to provide content filtering tools to individuals and parents to allow them to determine the type of content they feel is appropriate for themselves and their families.

This is being driven by two factors:

1. Costs – In Asia, mobile spam and other messaging abuse is estimated to cost subscribers an additional $5 a month per month and is also a key method of transmitting mobile viruses.  As the US and Europe’s mobile data services mature, these same trends (and costs) will hit our shores unless mobile operators scramble to deal with the looming threat.
2. Escalating concern by governments and consumers about the unrestricted access to content via mobile phones is motivating mobile operators to adopt more proactive safety and security standards.

Things to think about

While I do not know if the particular solution being offered up by Cloudmark and AdaptiveMobile is the ‘right’ solution to solve mobile spam and inappropriate content issues, it is imperative that these issues be addressed.

Older mobile phone users for the most part just use their mobile phone as a phone. This isn’t the case for business users and youth who more fully embrace the digital lifestyle and recognize that their phones are small computers and cameras/video cameras, and TV’s. Understanding the potential risks associated with unfiltered and unmonitored internet content access on mobile devices that goes largely unsupervised is critical to helping protect minors from  harm.

Mobile Spam is a significant and growing threat. Spam represents between 80-96 percent of all email traffic - PC and Mobile. Though the US mobile market has not yet felt the full burden of mobile spam that is being seen in the more advanced Asian mobile data markets, operators here and in Europe are bracing against the looming threat - Mobile Spam is a bigger issue in Asia than desktop spam.

Heightening the need for better monitoring and restrictions on mobile devices are 2 additional emerging technologies - location technologies (GPS etc), and mobile advertising. Both have the potential to exacerbate the looming mobile spam issue as businesses (legitimate and illegitimate) gain the ability to broadcast spam and advertising to mobile users within geographical locations. The ‘offers’ that you, or your children may encounter may be more than simply ‘annoying spam’ that you have to pay for receiving, they may also allow businesses to target you and your children for location based advertisements, violate your privacy, track your movements, and resell this information for data mining. They may also send offensive or illegal content to those within their proximity or offer fraudulent services etc.

Call to action:

Building protective services such as the ones outlined by the companies in this Press Release make good business sense to mobile operators trying to limit the amount of junk clogging their servers, and fighting to maintain consumer trust.

But it is also critical that you continue to press your elected representatives and your mobile service providers for more personal control over your safety and content choices. You should demand the protection and the tools you require as individuals and parents to establish the safety levels and content suitability levels you find appropriate when using these services.

Read the Article: Cloudmark and AdaptiveMobile Join Forces to Fight Mobile Content Abuse