AT&T’s “American Idol” text message spam.

I love my iPhone. But I hate AT&T. They just sent me a text message, which I received while in a staff meeting at work, telling me to watch “American Idol.” I have never watched “American Idol,” and I’m not going to start now. AT&T tells the Times that they only contacted Idol voters and “heavy texters.” Bullshit. There is no definition by which I’m a “heavy texter” (I send 3-5 per week, on average), I certainly haven’t voted for anybody on American Idol, and I logged onto their site and opted out of any sort of commercial messages the day that I bought my iPhone in 2007. There’s a total disconnect between how Apple does business and how these buffoons comport themselves.

Published by Waldo Jaquith

Waldo Jaquith (JAKE-with) is an open government technologist who lives near Char­lottes­­ville, VA, USA. more »

3 replies on “AT&T’s “American Idol” text message spam.”

  1. Weird. I’ve had Cellular One -> Cingular -> AT&T for nine years, I *do* use texting fairly frequently – at least daily – and I’ve never had that happen to me.

  2. I am wondering how reliable the SMS text messaging systems really are. I have not received this text message myself, and I get very few, but I have seen some that are clearly not for me. Messages sent to the wrong number, if you will… which makes me wonder how common misdirected texts are….

    Heck, I get my neighbor’s postal mail all the time, and he brings me letters clearly addressed to me all the time… so I guess we should not hold the SMS handling system to a higher standard than the postal system, but it is strange.

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