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Does using one of these services ever put you on a SPAM list?

I don't think it has anything to do with paranoia, but it's a legitimate concern about using one of these third-party text messaging websites--anyone remember the infamous SMS.AC? This is the Internet, after all, and one ought to exercise some caution. It's not really your own phone number, either, that you should be worried about, but other people's phone numbers to whom you're sending text messages. It's a lot easier to be blasé about this when it's not your own phone number that you're exposing.

Having said that, I presume a sufficient number of people have served as "Guinea pigs" by testing out freesms.1888usa.com with their own phone numbers. We probably would have heard by now if anyone has suddenly started receiving a lot of spam text messages.

Bylo, the main point of my response was that you seemed to be belittling a legitimate concern. To me, talus was asking a legitimate question about spam, and you seemed to be dismissing it as paranoia ("don't give anyone your phone number," you said). Perhaps I was misreading your attitude (I don't think I'm way off base here if anyone wants to re-read your reply to talus), but I'm just calling it the way I see it. If I seem to be reading too much into your reply to talus, then I would also suggest that you've read too much into talus's question.

Yeah, you can never prove with 100% certainty where spam is coming from, but I think if your pals suddenly started receiving spam after you've sent them text messages using a third-party website, most of them can put two and two together. That could be just paranoia, or perhaps that's just a reasonable conclusion that most mortals would reach.

Yes, ultimately, you have to take your chances and hope for the best (because, like you said, even a company with a good track record can be sold to someone else less scrupulous), but that doesn't mean you just give up and don't do anything to safeguard your privacy. Like you said, do some googling and find out if there has been any problems. And ask around, such as in a thread like this one--which is what talus was doing in the first place.

Bylo said:

That depends on how many legitimate text messages those people get and from how many different people they get them from. Just because they each got a text from me or you via freesms.com doesn't necessarily mean that that's who sold their phone numbers to spammers.

That's true, it depends on the situation. If each and every one of your pals started getting spammed shortly after you've sent each of them a text message via freesms.1888usa.com, they and everyone else can put two and two together, even though you might not want to see the obvious.

In my case, I haven't used text-messaging websites for my own phone (I did send a text message to myself once via Google Calendar, if that counts) and I haven't told people to send me text messages via such sites. In fact, I have yet to receive any text spam on my phone and I get maybe one text message a month from friends and family (I'm no teenager, if that weren't obvious). So if someone were to send me a text message via one of those sites and I suddenly started getting spammed shortly afterward, I would know who the culprit was. You can try to convince me that it may be due to a variety of causes, but pardon me if I think that you're just blowing smoke up my butt. Sorry, I just don't have enough book learnin' to talk myself out of seeing the obvious.

Now that I've got that off my chest, let me say this: I'm glad that there are people out there (such as you, Bylo) who are willing to test out websites such as freesms.1888usa.com and pave the way for the rest of us. Of course, just because a website gets a few thumbs up doesn't necessarily guarantee with 100% certainty that it's absolutely legit, but I don't demand or expect such an ironclad guarantee (nor do most people). As for myself, I wouldn't be willing to test out such a website if no one knew anything about the site and if googling for info on the site came up empty. That's just me, though--different strokes for different folks.

Anyway, Peter has freesms.1888usa.com linked in the FAQ and I trust him, so what else does a guy need? In Pete we trust.

Good discussion, it was all very helpful actually. I'm not a TEXT messaging kind of guy and I was wondering what people experiences were like.

I don't expect any ironclad guarantee's and I never did think about the repercussion of using it to send messages to someone else's phone - glad someone mentioned it (I would never use the "forward to a friend" email button on a webpage).

As for freesms.1888usa.com, I still wonder why someone would provide a free service such as this. Could it actually be out of the goodness of their hearts? What do they gain?

Hey Pete, don't worry, I won't let things get out of hand. I just wanted to make a few last comments (unless, of course, Bylo makes a few more comments that might require some more comments from me and around and around we go).

About Bylo calling me out for using "blowing smoke up my butt" since I had earlier called him out for using "paranoid"--well, if you can dish it out, you should be able to take it, too. In case anyone perceives that as an inflammatory remark, I will douse the flames by fully admitting this: Bylo was implying that I was being hypocritical, and yes, I was being hypocritical. Being a hypocrite is one of my many shortcomings.

Bylo, I was being facetious when I made those remarks about trusting Peter. It was to make Peter laugh more than anything. You also pointed out how I "trust" Google. I have absolutely no idea why you were pointing that out and I still don't. I'm not asking you to clarify, though (although you can if you want to), since I think this discussion has pretty much run its course.