AT&T Accused of Spamming Its Own Customers

AT&T appears to have made a monumental blunder. Over the past week they sent text messages to most of their customers. The messages were ads for American Idol, and urged customers to watch the season premiere. The backlash has been considerable as angry users accused the company of spamming them. Many used Twitter to express their annoyance.

AT&T says since the messages were free, they weren’t spam. Hmm. Let’s think about that. The majority of us aren’t charged for the spam we get in our email inboxes, but those ads for Viagra, fake watches and cut rate mortgages are definitely considered spam, right? Sorry AT&T, that justification just doesn’t fly.

SMS spam is a particular problem because unlike the traditional email type, users are generally charged for every text message they receive. Even if someone has an unlimited text plan, SMS spam is still very annoying. It’s astonishing that AT&T thinks that just because their users weren’t charged for the spam they sent, it’s not spam. In fact they actually insist that it makes perfect sense because American Idol is “built on texting”.  Interestingly enough, had AT&T sent their ads for American Idol in Europe, they would be in violation of the law. Unfortunately, the FTC has sided with AT&T and says the messages don’t fall under its definition of spam.