The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) has announced the latest release of the MMA Consumer Best Practices (CBP) Guidelines for Cross-Carrier Mobile Content Services (PDF). Online Media Daily has a pretty good summary. Major updates include rules about marketing to children, clarifying the word “free”, and the way opt-ins should work.
There’s also a section on viral marketing, with the following practices listed as forbidden:
--Messages forwarded by automatic means generally by means of an application, e.g., accessing a consumer’s contact list or address book.
--Messages forwarded to an Internet domain name assigned to a wireless operator for mobile messaging service.
--Providing inducements – e.g., payments, discounts, free goods or services – in exchange for a consumer’s agreement to forward a message.
--Origination is from a commercial source (ensure reflected in above language)
The first practice raised a lot of complaints, mostly against SMS.ac, which asked people to input their Hotmail account and password to send out invitations to the entire address book, and received a lot of complaints that people didn’t know that’s what it would be used for. (MMA press release)