Wal-Mart Tries Commercial Text Messaging

You can't really call it spam, as it was a true opt-in program. Out of 'over a million customers' Wal-Mart approached to be part of a test market to receive text message ads, 90% declined; leaving 'hundreds of thousands' [read: 200,000] of customers who opted-in.
The program allowed for consumers to have short-duration sale ads text messaged to their cellphones. Initially sending information on 10-15 sale items in just 3-4 messages, Wal-Mart learned that was too much info. They also learned that if they crammed a bunch of messages into as little time as possible, it went over better with customers. Their theory? Consumers were believed to only check their text messages every few hours, so getting them all bunched up was considered less annoying. [Don't you read a text msg when you get it?]

If you have a prior business relationship with a company, and have given them your number, calling or texting your cellphone seems to be fair game. However, true text messaging spam is banned by federal law in the CAN-SPAM act. Even though that took effect in 2005, receiving text message spam seems to be a continued problem on some wireless carriers. As text messages seem to become cheaper every year, there doesn't seem to be enough consumer outrage for anything to be done about it.
Maybe if enough of these types of incidents keep happening, that will change.

read more | digg story