Spammers increasingly targeting Montreal

AdaptiveMobile released data that shows a marked increase in SMS spam across Canada in the past six months. The higher volume of SMS spam comes on the eve of the July 1st compliance deadline for Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL).

Where you live in Canada determines the type of SMS spam you are most likely to receive, highlighting how spammers are using sophisticated profiling techniques to tailor spam campaigns.

Quebec was the most spammed province, followed by Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. Per city, Montreal received 34% of the total spam over the 6-month period, which was considerably higher than the rest of the country. Vancouver was the next highest, with 9% of spam, followed by Quebec City at 5.5% and Edmonton at 4.6%.

SMS spam varied according to location, with citizens of Quebec receiving aggressive marketing spam, alerting the user to lottery winnings or special deals. British Columbia received the highest amount of Adult spam, including dating site promotions and pornography offers.

The groups behind the messaging abuse are often criminal organizations that have little regard for compliance standards or laws. The forthcoming CASL legislation may also impact apps that rely on messaging-invite techniques, otherwise known as growth-hacking, to increase their user bases, as featured in an earlier AdaptiveMobile report

“Our analysis from December 2013 to June 2014, shows an increase in messaging abuse, which comes amidst the publicity around Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation,” said Cathal Mc Daid, Head of Data Intelligence & Analytics at AdaptiveMobile. “SMS spammers are sophisticated, adapting content to different regions for targeted campaigns. We anticipate the introduction of CASL will provide consumers much greater clarity on the difference between legitimate mobile advertising and messaging abuse, empowering people to report unwanted messages with confidence.”