Spam Texting

 Text message spam promising free iPads or cash rewards may be obnoxious and unwanted, but they also carry a greater danger: clicking on texts can install malware that collects personal data from your phone. They're also booming faster than any other sector of the tech industry. Spam text messages in the U.S. increased 45% in 2011 to an incredible 4.5 billion messages, Richi Jennings, an industry analyst and expert in spam, told Bloomberg.

Responding to such messages can, in many cases, also add significant charges to your phone bill. Generally, spam texts are sent using a prepaid phone card which costs about $20 a month and can send messages to millions of people. This is costing the carriers and the people receiving the texts much more than the senders, especially if the receiver doesn't have unlimited an unlimited texting plan.

Be Careful What You 'Like'

 

A judge recently ruled that "liking" something on Facebook does not protect you under the 1st amendment. Six law enforcement workers in Virginia were recently fired after "liking" the Facebook page of the current Sheriff's opponent. The debate is over whether or not a "like" is an endorsement. Currently, the only way to follow such a page is to "like" it, thus making it hard to say whether or not it should be thought of as an endorsement of something.

Judge Raymond A. Jackson acknowledged that other cases involving written messages on Facebook protected the speaker with the First Amendment, clicking the "like" button is different and doesn't warrant protection. This is sure to be an interesting debate that will take place in the near future.