THE SPAM ISSUE IN MOBILE BUSINESS A COMPARATIVE REGULATORY OVERVIEW

The emerging mobile industry is expected to be characterized by increasingly personalized and location-based services. Among these services, personalized mobile marketing and advertisement services are predicted to be particularly important. However, besides the excitement about the potential innovative one-to-one marketing strategies enabled by the mobile medium, growing concerns are been raised about the protection of the users’ privacy from what can become extremely intrusive practices in an intimate personal space. There is indeed a thin line between providing useful services and bombarding the user with mobile spam. Conscious of the importance of solving this sensible issue, the mobile marketing association itself has issued privacy guidelines to its members. However, because this self regulation has proven weak in protecting users from abuses, regulatory bodies throughout the world have issued laws to protect user privacy. This paper illustrates and compares the regulatory frameworks of Switzerland, the European Union and the United States, and analyzes their likely implications for the mobile business industry.

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