Annie Turner sent me an email at 2am this morning with the title – read this. Apparently, she was having a chat with some very respectable VP’s at CTIA's Mobile Focus and what were they chatting about?

Google.

We can’t go it to details but the gist of the conversation is that there are some tricky rules and regulation regarding WAP gateways and the retrieval of mobile phone numbers.

This is a hot issue and mobile search companies are unable to completely stop vendors and advertisers from accessing the mobile phone numbers of mobile consumers.

So, in more cases than one; when a mobile user browses the web and then clicks sponsored links and surfs around a bit before exiting; it is highly probable that they will receive SMS from that advertiser.

It is not clear if this is a hiccup or not. But it seems that if a link is clicked on and then clicked out of again no phone number exchange is possible. But if the user browsers on the sponsored link for some time then the phone number is sent to the advertiser.

OK. We can’t be sure but we have now tested this 28 times with SIM cards from the UK and Germany and will report back.

The implications of this are outlined in an interview with Lawyer David Marsh in the Mobile Advertising and Marketing Analyst.