Justin Pearse over at NMA reports on the division in the UK marketing industry over Bluetooth, with no clear mandate on the legality of sending unsolicited marketing messages using the technology. Evidently the “Electronic Communications Regulations” say explicit consumer consent is needed for marketing messages, and that’s a chicken-or-egg problem for marketers that don’t have any other point of contact with consumers than their Bluetooth bots.

Accordingly, many people using Bluetooth marketing have decided to interpret a phone with Bluetooth set to discoverable as opting in to their messages, which seems a bit like a spammer justifying what they do by saying they only send messages to people with email addresses. One marketing agency person says “Operators need to advise people how to put Bluetooth protection on.” I’m not sure exactly how he means that, but it sure sounds like he’s saying that it’s the receiver’s responsibility to do something to prevent being hit with the messages. Again, seems an awful lot like spammers.

Some agencies are trying to figure out a better way, using clearly defined Bluetooth “zones”, like a corner of a club or a floor mat. I’m not sure those will work too well, after all, how do you make sure a Bluetooth signal doesn’t spill over the mat, but it’s a start — and far more responsible. Email marketing has been made ever the more difficult because of spam, and spamming mobiles — whether from a legitimate business over Bluetooth or a shady ringtone seller via SMS — will only dent mobile marketing’s prospects in general.

It’s unclear how long it’s going to take people to understand that interruption marketing isn’t too effective anymore, regardless of how new and technologically advanced the medium is which it’s delivered is. Consumers the world over use different means to avoid these messages, whether it’s skipping ads on a TiVo, blocking pop-ups and stripping out ads in Firefox, or using spam blockers. It’s unclear what part of that makes some marketers think intruding on peoples’ mobiles will be well-received, even if their Bluetooth is on.