Snippet: Verizon is Making It Easier to Block Spam Texts Sent By Email ☇

Emma Roth for The Verge:

Verizon is making it easier to block pesky spam texts sent by random email addresses. If you find yourself overloaded with these messages, you can now text “Off” to 4040 to stop receiving texts from emails altogether.

While Verizon previously let you turn email-to-text off through your My Verizon account, this new feature lets you switch off email-to-text messages directly from your phone. It’s worth noting that when you turn email-to-text off, you won’t receive any emails to your phone number — so you might not want to turn it off if you often receive legitimate messages from emails.

As the FCC is trying to fight spam calls and texts, it almost would make sense to require every carrier and MVNO to give customers the ability to opt-out of SMS/MMS gateways (typically yournumber@somecarrierURL.com). In my experience, that would cut down on a lot of spam texts and maybe eliminate the need to use an app like Bouncer.