Messaging

Alfa and Touch: We Need to Talk About SMS Spam


I fucking hate SMS ads. I hate them even more when they’re from brands (or ministries) I don’t care about and have never and will never do business with. Lebanese people get thousands of unwanted SMS blasts every year, without an option to opt out of receiving them.

I’m on Android, so I’ve been blacklisting the biggest offenders for years. However, it got so bad, and they’ve become so many, that I disabled SMS notifications completely. After all, even the ones that aren’t ads just make me sad: it’s either my astronomically high Alfa bill (or my 4G consumption magically running out) or my bank reminding me how little is left in my account at the end of every month.

It might be a minor annoyance to most of us, but there is a serious privacy issue here, especially since most of the ads we get aren’t solicited, which begs the question, how did they get your number? And why are those ads still so badly targeted in 2018. It’s bad for us, it’s bad for brands and it’s bad for our telcos, and here are some reasons why:

Why That’s Bad for Us

I don’t want ads about a washing machine every week. I also don’t want to know for how much cucumbers are selling for at a big supermarket. I definitely don’t want to enter the next stage of a draw I never went into in the first place, to win 1000$ or riyals or whatever.

I might not mind an ad about an offer from a restaurant I like, or a reminder about a party I want to go to, but as long as I’m the one that gave them my number, signaling an interest to hear from them and get ads when they have something going on.

Now, I understand SMS is something no one uses anymore with online messaging apps and services, which means advertisers blast en-masse in hopes of someone actually seeing it. I might forgive that last ditch desperate effort, but I hate that I need to put up with it for years on end, with no option to stop them spamming me.

In most countries I’ve been to, telcos or spam SMS companies allow users to opt out of receiving SMS ads from that particular sender. In some, marketers would be fined or forced to pay your phone bill if they send you an SMS again after you decided to unsubscribe. In Lebanon, opting out is virtually impossible, and that’s our main problem with the junk SMS epidemic we all suffer from, even on new numbers.

Why That’s Bad for You

Most Lebanese already hate our telcos for the astronomically high price we pay for basic connectivity on our mobile devices. Why add to our woes with SMS blasts that constantly hound us?

Why sell our private numbers to advertisers at a premium, with absolutely no guidelines except a loose “no sex, no politics” ‘rule’ which seemed to have been on hiatus during the election season earlier this year…

You can easily solve this by allowing us to unsubscribe from some of those advertisers, or forcing the people you sell our data to, to include a way for us to unsubscribe from their twice-a-week update about cucumber prices.

Help Lebanese people hate you less, and allow us to make our SMS tab something we don’t dread and hate and would rather disable.

I ran a poll on my Instagram account yesterday, and here are the results based on 1261 taps for the first question, and 1357 for the second one.



Why That’s Bad for Companies

We come now to the brands that use SMS blasts to push their products, offers and services. I know times are bad and the situation is desperate, but bombarding phones whose numbers you’re not supposed to have will probably hurt your brand a lot more than help your sales.

Let’s say I love a brand. What will happen after I get 77 SMSes from them about something I already know about? I’ll start hating them, especially that they are sending me those annoying SMSes without me giving them permission to.

Let’s say I hate a brand. Do you think that by SMS #346 I’ll change my mind? Probably not. So, you guys are wasting your money on an ad that is wasting my time and lessening the chances I will ever part with a lira for your business.

A Simple Solution

Even though most of us would rather lose SMS completely, it is still useful in many instances. Like when your data limit is reached, or if you have 2-step authentication for logging in to your online accounts. Most still need it to get confirmation of your credit card payments, or a code to activate an account or app or WiFi connection on your layover.

Give us the option to opt out. It’s as simple as that.

When you sell our numbers to third party advertisers, make sure you include in the deal an option where they give a user the choice of unsubscribing.

Instead of sending 100,000 SMSes to numbers that probably don’t care about your brand, try to gather a database of users’ numbers who actually might want to know about them, not everyone, and do that with people’s consent like when they give feedback at a restaurant.

The freakiest one for me is when SMSes use your billing information, such as how much you pay per month, to call and offer you loans and other financial services, given they know you pay a lot for your phone bill, and probably would qualify for a loan you don’t want. That was just creepy and a massive invasion of privacy that went beyond your number, but also your supposedly protected and secret finances.

Alfa and Touch, let us unsubscribe from SMS junk. Please.

Fed Up of Whatsapp?

@AnisTabet’s FB

Aren’t we all? And I guess the new “Status” features kinda was the last straw for a lot of folks. I mean, why would I need a 24h story on Facebook Messenger, Instagram and Whatsapp? Is the Zucks really that intent on pummelling Snapchat by cloning its trademark service on every social network he owns?


For me personally though, what annoys me the most is that a lot of people have my number, and most people think it’s just fine to Whatsapp you and that’s become extra tiring, and made Whatsapp somewhat of a nuisance on most days.

That’s why I use several other chat clients as well, such as Telegram, Signal and Threema among others. Here’s a little bit about each and why I use them, in case you really decide to ditch Whatsapp.

Signal


Encryption is everything these days. Open Whisper System’s end-to-end encryption is open-source and free, and what many other encrypted chat clients use. So, why not use their own chat and call client? There’s a few extra security features in this messaging and call app, and it doesn’t have the annoying stuff like profile pictures and statuses. I love the dark theme on it too, and I suggest you lock it with a passphrase so that if a robber (or cop?) is unlawfully looking through your phone, they won’t be able to access any of your private chats.

Download it for Android here and for iOS here. It’s desktop version(Chrome extension) is also awesome when you’re on your machine and not your device.

Telegram


This chat client is for our Ingress gaming groups. It’s my favorite when it comes to group chats, with a lot of useful tricks like “pinned messages” so you don’t have to read through your friends 1132 drunk messages to get the summary of what’s important. Also, the custom “stickers” are a lot of fun, we have some of your favorite dictators doing funny stuff, as well as plenty of inappropriate memes and funny images instead of boring old emoji. It’s like messaging app meets 4chan sometimes. Also, the “channels” feature is cool, where brands or influencers just broadcast stuff. Sharing files is also easy, and often, you get a snippet of a link or image you shared without needing to open it (basically all the watered-down features Whatsapp adds years later)

Download it here for Android, and here for iOS

Threema


If your work involves a lot of sensitive or confidential information and files, this might be what you pay those 2.99USD for. It’s not free like the rest, but it has some extra security features and a lot more anonymous. It doesn’t require you to punch in an email and doesn’t user your mobile number. They even have an “Threema Work” tailored for businesses that wanna keep their intellectual property and plans secure. I use this when I really need to and with contacts I have verified via the app. It’s definitely not a replacement given it’s not free and most people wouldn’t shell out the 3$, but if security and anonymity matter a lot to your work, then you might want to use Threema for those chats.

Buy it for Anrdroid here and iOS here.