Spam Carpet-bombing

(Responses from Editor-at-large Daniel Scuka in italics.)

Increasingly, I have been subjected to an incredible amount of spam on my i-mode phone -- two to four messages a day. I have since spoken to many other friends [in Japan] and I am hearing different stories. Here are some of the things that I have heard (I can not confirm any of these though):
>> Spam is a big issue, and DoCoMo is under a lot of pressure to fix it.

** You are charged for traffic both to and from your phone, so you end up paying to receive spam.
>> True story. DoCoMo has announced it will cut the packet fees for receiving mail.

** If you follow any of the links on the spam, excessive charges are billed to your phone.
>> True story, although the charges aren't "excessive." You are merely billed the usual JPY0.3 per 128 bytes packet fees. It's a matter of not clicking on the links -- which is a personal choice.

** NTT must be selling their customer database to these spam companies as most people I know have not opted in for spam.
>> I don't think so. The carrier is hyper-sensitive about any sort of negative publicity that such a move might cause. Besides -- they're making bags of cash as is; no need to get down and dirty by flogging the subscriber list. Since the vast majority of customers leave the default address for the phone in place (090XXXXXXXX@docomo.ne.jp), it's a cinch for any spammer to generate a mailing list based on sequential numbers. I changed mine back in February, and have only received one spam since. My wife was getting five a day up until two weeks ago, and then we switched hers. Since then, nothing.

** [I hear] there is a way that you can contact NTT to have spam removed (I am not sure how they would do this unless NTT themselves were sending/sanctioning the messages).
>> Not that I'm aware of. Spam is spam, and DoCoMo doesn't yet have the filters in place that many ISPs do. Give them some time -- they will.

** This is carpet-bombing spam rather than targeted or selective spam -- a practice which has proven overseas to alienate potential customers.
>> I agree -- it is carpet bombing, and since when has anyone in Japan done anything like it's done elsewhere? There's a huge pool of dateless men out there who'd love to meet a girlfriend and are willing to pay for it. In the meantime, the spammers will keep at it. Death. Taxes. Spam.