The Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG) announced Wednesday that Cingular Wireless, Sprint PCS and France Telecom have joined its efforts to fight spam and viruses.
The nonprofit coalition was founded last December by a group of communications and technology companies to fight messaging abuses and attacks. Internet service provider America Online joined the group Wednesday as well.
“We welcome this group of premier wireless and wireline carriers and look forward to work with them to help define a set of best current practices across service providers to improve deliverability while eliminating spam and viruses,” said Omar Tellez, MAAWG’s outreach and communications chair and Openwave’s director of market development. “With an addressable base of over 300 million subscribers and a strong footprint in Asia, Europe and the Americas, we can now truly say that the MAAWG has made significant inroads into consolidating the fight against messaging abuse.”
As short message service and instant messaging gain traction among mobile users, spammers and virus-writers are increasingly targeting mobile devices. At least three programs have threatened smart phones this year-including the recent “Skulls” virus, which replaces icons on some Nokia models with images of skulls and crossbones-and some carriers are considering charging spammers to reduce the amount of junk mail on their networks.
“Sprint is committed to improve our customers’ wireless messaging experience, and we must cooperate to find solutions for eliminating spam and viruses,” said Sharon Stanley, director of platform operations at Sprint. “As the volume of text messaging expands, it is clear that proactive methods are necessary to diminish future spam and to protect our customers.”
