In addition, 68% of cell phone users have received unwanted sales and marketing calls, with one-quarter receiving calls a few times a week or more frequently, according to the survey of 1,954 cell phone owners in the US.
Smartphone users reported higher incidents of text spam and unwanted sales calls. A full 29% of smartphone users receive text spam at least weekly, compared to 20% of other cell phone users. Twenty-six percent of smartphone users receive unwanted sales calls weekly, compared to 23% of other cell phone users.
Pew noted that it is “against the law in the US to place unsolicited commercial calls to a mobile phone when the call is made by using an automated random-digit dialing generator or if the caller uses a pre-recorded message.”
The research group related that in the case of spam texts, “commercial parties cannot send spam to cell owners who have placed their mobile device on the National Do Not Call registry. For those who have not chosen to go on that registry, governmental regulations bar text messages sent from internet domain names. Any mobile-to-mobile spam messages are permissible to reach consumers on their cell phones, so long as the text contacts were not generated through an automatic dialing system.”