If you're using social media to follow the presidential campaign or even if you're related to someone else who's doing that, there's a good chance your cellphone got spammed Tuesday night with an anti-Obama text message.
The messages went out between 7:30 and 10 p.m. They were anonymous but quickly traced to a Republican consulting firm in Northern Virginia.
Federal law generally prohibits the sending of political robocalls and robo-texts to cellphones. But those provisions don't address emails that are sent to cellphones as text messages.
The sites were registered at the Web hosting company Go Daddy.com. On Wednesday, Go Daddy suspended them.
Nick Fuller, a spokesman for Go Daddy, says its terms of service are clear cut.
"When a customer uses a domain name registered thru Go Daddy to participate in activities such as spamming via email or text messaging, instant messages, pop-ups, that's not something that we tolerate," Fuller says.
It appears that all of the websites related to the text messages were registered by employees of a Republican consulting firm, ccAdvertising of Centreville, Va.
The firm's website brags about its ability to reach cellphones.
It says its clients have included McDonald's; Starbucks; Grover Norquist's anti-tax advocacy group, Americans for Tax Reform; and GOP politician Ken Cuccinelli, now Virginia's attorney general.
In an email conversation with NPR, ccAdvertising's president, Gabriel Joseph, wouldn't address the messages sent last night. He said the firm has always scrupulously complied with the law.
The messages went out between 7:30 and 10 p.m. They were anonymous but quickly traced to a Republican consulting firm in Northern Virginia.
Federal law generally prohibits the sending of political robocalls and robo-texts to cellphones. But those provisions don't address emails that are sent to cellphones as text messages.
The sites were registered at the Web hosting company Go Daddy.com. On Wednesday, Go Daddy suspended them.
Nick Fuller, a spokesman for Go Daddy, says its terms of service are clear cut.
"When a customer uses a domain name registered thru Go Daddy to participate in activities such as spamming via email or text messaging, instant messages, pop-ups, that's not something that we tolerate," Fuller says.
It appears that all of the websites related to the text messages were registered by employees of a Republican consulting firm, ccAdvertising of Centreville, Va.
The firm's website brags about its ability to reach cellphones.
It says its clients have included McDonald's; Starbucks; Grover Norquist's anti-tax advocacy group, Americans for Tax Reform; and GOP politician Ken Cuccinelli, now Virginia's attorney general.
In an email conversation with NPR, ccAdvertising's president, Gabriel Joseph, wouldn't address the messages sent last night. He said the firm has always scrupulously complied with the law.
I'd actually pay monthly for a REAL, NO BULLSHIT news channel that doesn't 'have' to rely on airtime being sold.