Privacy and Market Alignment

Now that wireless mobile media has gone mainstream, there's even more reason to get the word out about privacy advocacy, cultural alignment and marketing practices. Mobile media empowers the subscriber as much as it does the marketers trying to reach them. Permission based marketing "opt-in" means a subscriber can't be contacted without their permission, right? With email that didn't work so well. Hosts offer spam filters but typically, too high a security setting blocks the mail you want. With wireless it's a little different. The SMS short codes marketers use to send text and multimedia can be blocked by carriers if they spam or send unsolicited messages. The TCPA and CANSPAM regulations are pretty well enforced and carriers won't wait to pull the plug on spammers. Rerouting messages to hide the originating address doesn't work over wireless the way it does over IP. When you opt-in you're in, when you opt-out, you're out.

And yes, your wireless address (phone number) is recorded, so is your response and carrier provider. That's proof of opt-in and confirmation of opt-out. Mobile media companies have to obtain a second opt-in by permission to actually call you. Mobile marketers can't simply export a list of mobile numbers to a call center and start ringing you up without your express permission. TCPA violations aside, text is far more effective marketing than call centers and loosing mobile contact with opt-in subscribers simply isn't worth it.

Mobile media is the best opportunity yet for market audiences to control the information they're exposed to. As subscribers opt-in to and out of promotions, they're telling marketers exactly what interests them and what doesn't. Now that advertisers have a tool for instant feedback and relevance, there's no reason to hammer the market with media that doesn't resonate. So now, the masses control the media instead of the other way around.