Businesses prepare to bluejack your phone

Posted on 26 Nov 2003 at 11:24

Even your mobile phone might not be able to avoid the curse of spam, now that the marketing industry is waking up to the advertising potential of Bluetooth.

As we reported in October, Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones have spawned bluejacking, the process of anonymously sending text and images from one phone to another.

However, what started out as an innocent pastime could become a pervasive marketing tool, outside the control of privacy protection laws.

UK PR company Rainier PR has published a white paper explaining how bluejacking can be used as a promotional medium. One company, TagText, have already begun making avatars available in the hope that phone users will begin sending them to each other. Its founder, Russell Buckley, explained that, 'The rise in bluejacking couldn't have been more timely.... Not only can we capitalise on the trend, but using images adds a new dimension that even most bluejackers haven't yet considered.'

Buckley justifies the practice as just another form of guerilla marketing.

'If you don't shy away from other forms of guerilla marketing like fly posting or giant image projection, you may want to think about this new medium,' he said, though there seems to be a fundamental difference between something stuck on a wall and an unsolicited message appearing on your phone.

Such viral marketing techniques, however, are not the most worrying prospect. As Rainier's says, 'Location-based services are the most interesting, yet controversial application of bluejacking.

'A supermarket could send Bluetooth promotional messages to customers as the approached a particular aisle. In the High Street or shopping centre individual shops could send electronic coupons to consumers as they walked past.'

To the impartial observer, this is nothing but a new form of spam.

As the paper says, 'Spam is universally detested. Given the intimate relationship between a consumer and their mobile phone, the opportunity for a company to alienate a consumer with a misdirected Bluetooth message is likely to be even greater.' But by its very nature, bluejack messages are unsolicited, and what is spam if it isn't unsolicited messages.

'The world does not need Bluespam,' Rainier continues. 'The danger is that if the marketing community abuses Bluetooth for commercial gain, users will simply disable the feature on their phones.'

That would appear, for now, to be the only option. Imminent EU regulations on privacy protection that should prevent unwanted SMS marketing messages may well not cover bluejacking, as it uses short-range radio signals rather than communications networks.

Bluetooth phone users will doubtlessly be hoping that marketing organisations take considerable care when using such an intrusive medium; few people, especially anyone who has been deluged with email spam, will have faith in them.

Author: Simon Aughton