Share with your network!
The ICO (Information Commissioners Office), a UK regulator, raided the premises of a SMS spammer today, successfully confiscating equipment and SIM cards used in the spam attacks. The GSMA Spam Reporting Service, powered by Cloudmark, which has been provided to the four main UK Mobile operators (EE, Vodafone, Telefonica O2 & 3) for just under a year now, played a crucial part in acquiring the relevant legal warrants for the ICO to perform this raid.
Any mobile user in the UK can forward SMS spam to the short code 7726 - the resulting data was used by the ICO to provide the burden of proof for where spam is coming from.
Mobile operators are using these reports to shutdown SIM cards and ban organizations that are using their networks to send spam.
"This shows why reporting messages to us and your mobile network operator is so crucial. Without the reports we got through the 7726 system, we wouldn’t have been able to carry out this raid today," said Andy Curry, an Enforcement manager at the ICO.
So, do not delete those highly annoying and intrusive messages asking if you have had an accident or need a quick loan before forwarding them to 7726! This allows mobile operators to prevent more from coming to you, and it allows regulators like the ICO to have the evidence they need to raid these spammers and seize their spamming equipment.