Last month trade press reported on the first wireless spam incident in the U.S., but one incident is not going to push the issue to the forefront of government legislators or, for that matter, carriers who could take measures to block junk mail if they deemed necessary.

At the recent Internet World Wireless conference held in New York, a panel on privacy, however, did have a few words to say on the subject, according to a report in Asian Business.

The president of Junkbusters, Jason Catlett, said that consumer fears of being swarmed with unwanted messages has been overblown. He calls it the ‘Starbucks Scenario’ where every time you pass a Starbucks, your mobile phone rings to tell you that Starbucks is offering you a 50-cent discount on a coffee provided you come in right away. Catlett argues that the cost of broadcasting millions of coupons to urbanites could never justify the means. In his view spam would be technologically difficult to develop and hog bandwidth.

Offering the counter argument was the director of wireless advertising for OmniSky Doug Leeds. He reminded the audience that spam on the Internet is alive and well today because it works. Leeds also stressed that the technological challenges of taking spam to the wireless world were not monumental by any means.

In order to reach a common ground, arguably an open dialogue is needed; hopefully, before we find ourselves in a place where technology rather than customer service dictates.