Sadly, evidence from other sources suggests the problem is as bad as ever.
Last month, AT&T announced an accomplishment that might seem as unlikely as a call to a customer-support line being answered with zero hold time: a sustained decrease in spam texts.
In a post headlined “??AT&T Text-Blocking Sets a Record,” Matt Bailey, an assistant vice president for product management and development, wrote that “new and better network filters” blocked a record 1 billion-plus spam texts in July, and ever since “customers have collectively reported one-third fewer spam texts getting through to their phones.”
That post credited customers for using AT&T’s ActiveArmor security app for “ forwarding us much more suspected text spam” after AT&T eased that process about a year ago. (The company installs ActiveArmor on Android phones it sells; iPhone users can download it later.)
“This has helped us investigate and block similar spam messages and even take down malicious websites,” Bailey wrote in the post.
After I responded to an AT&T pitch highlighting this accomplishment with a lengthier version of “o rly?”, the Dallas telecom firm set up a call with product-technology director Derek Baylor.
