WASHINGTON -- The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved rules Wednesday to prohibit marketers from sending unsolicited messages to wireless phones and other devices without the express consent of a consumer.

The new opt-in rules implement the wireless provisions of the Can Spam Act passed by Congress late last year. The exceptions to the rules include transactional messages between a company and a customer and situations where an individual chooses to forward messages to a cell phone.

To implement the plan, the FCC will require commercial mobile radio services (CMRS) such as Sprint or Verizon Wireless to supply the agency with the names of the Internet domains on which they offer service. No individual or subscriber will be collected or used in the list.

The list will be publicly available for marketers to determine which domain addresses are aimed at mobile services. The rules ban sending any commercial messages to addresses that contain domain names that have been listed for at least 30 days, or at any time prior to 30 days, if the sender otherwise knows the message is directed to a wireless device.

FCC Chairman Michael Powell said the rules strike a balance between protecting consumers from unwanted messages while minimizing the burdens on senders of such messages.

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