On Wednesday the Federal Communications Commission will likely vote to designate text messages under the Federal Communications Act’s Title I classification. This move will give cell phone carriers greater legal security and latitude to fight spam, explains AAF’s Director of Technology and Innovation Policy Will Rinehart.

An excerpt:

Text messaging services are in legal limbo since they have never been formally classified by the FCC as being either a Title I service like the Internet or a Title II service like telephony. Practically speaking, a Title I classification would simply be a formality, since carriers have already treated these services as such and have been stopping spam messages before they travel the network. If text messaging were defined as a Title II service, on the other hand, carriers would face steep legal battles with mass text messaging services and would be far more limited in what they could do about the problem of spam.

Read more here.