I’ve told this story in person to a few people today, and every time I have done so, I have had to explain what SlyDial is, so let me start there. SlyDial is a service that is provided by MobileSphere in Boston, and it works like this: First, you call their number. They play an advertisement to you to pay for the service you are about to receive. Next, they prompt you for the phone number of a mobile phone. You punch this in, and they will then take you right to that person’s voicemail box, all without ringing that person’s telephone. It’s a pretty cool service, actually, and a great way to deliver low-priority messages without disturbing the recipient.

I liked the idea enough that I immediately went out and tried it by calling my work cell phone from my personal cell phone. It works exactly as it is supposed to do, as far as I can tell. However, as neat of a toy as it is, I had no real further use for it, so I never called it again.

Today, it called me. SlyDial called me, and left a prerecorded message on my cell phone voicemail as only SlyDial can do. SlyDial SlyDialled me, and left an advertisement in my inbox. This fact disturbs me very greatly, as they are surely not the only ones who can figure out how to drop stuff straight into people’s voicemail, and the last thing we need is a new spam propagation vector.

Of course, I am not a lawyer, but it seems to me as though MobileSphere are trying to skirt the boundaries of the law here. It is illegal to send prerecorded messages to a cell phone, because cell phones cost the recipient money. Voicemail typically doesn’t, though, and so while the reason for the law might be satisfied, the wording of the law is not, or at least, not the way I read it.

I will leave it at that for the moment, while I decide what thing I might do to nip this in the bud.

Update 2009-01-07: The Consumerist blog has picked up my story. Thanks, guys!

Another update 2009-01-07: Apparently, legal action is out of the question. It’s not worth it to me to hire a lawyer, and I can’t even get past the clerks at the Schenectady Small Claims court, because the defendant is in Boston.