Have you been receiving anti-Obama text messages from a random address? You're not alone — hundreds of people have said they've seen them on their phones.

Speaking anecdotally, most of the people this writer has noticed reporting the anti-Obama texts are journalists and other politically-active types in the greater Washington, D.C. area. I, a New York-based journalist, have not yet received one of the messages.

@mikemadden I got a similar one from the same crew a couple hours ago. — jim spellman (@jimspellmancnn) October 31, 2012

Txt to my 13-yr-old daughter: "Obama denies protection to babies who survive abortions. Obama is just wrong" from sms@gopmessage.com — Jonathan Weisman (@jonathanweisman) October 31, 2012

So these seem to be going around tonight... twitter.com/mikedebonis/st… — Mike DeBonis (@mikedebonis) October 31, 2012

Just got text from "sms@aicett.com": "Obama supports same-sex relationships. Voting for him will destroy the sanctity of marriage." — Jonathan Chait (@jonathanchait) October 31, 2012

The texts are apparently coming form a variety of unknown web domains, including republicanett.com, votegopett.com, aiccomett.com and informedett.com. Who's behind these messages?

According to ITworld, all of the domains sending the texts belong to ccAdvertising, which bills itself as an ad firm that uses "unique interactive techonology to conduct personalized telephone surveys and messages with great results and service." Talking Points Memo, however, has called it a "a Republican-tied robo-call firm."

Shouldn't such spam texts, regardless of their political orientation, be illegal? Perhaps: The Federal Communications Commission bans unsolicited autodialed messages and fines violators $16,000 for each one. It issued a public notice in September warning that it would be on the lookout for such violations this election season.

However, Scott Goodstein, CEO and founder of progressive new media firm Revolution Messaging told Mashable that ccAdvertising is taking advantage of a loophole that may be allowing spam political texts to be sent via email — a loophole Goodstein believes should be closed. He also believes political text messages are only legal if the recipient chooses to receive them.

Accordingly, Revolution Messaging is backing PocketSpammers, an online petition asking the Federal Communications Commission to address the problem. The FCC began accepting the public's comments on the petition just last week.

"[The FCC] will fully clarify whether people are allowed to do this, and potentially go after and prosecute companies for violating the rules," said Goodstein, who added that he believes ccAdvertising are getting phone numbers from voter rolls are targeting the messages to strategically reduce voter turnout.

SEE ALSO: Text Messaging is the New Political Forum for Young Adults

Goodstein, considered a trailblazer for his early work with text message-based solicitations on the Obama campaign in 2008, has long accused ccAdvertising of engaging in illegitimate practices. In a spat well documented by Slate's Sasha Issenberg, Goodstein previously accused ccAdvertising's president and CEO of committing a federal crime by sending unsolicited spam texts in earlier elections.

GoDaddy has since blocked the domains being used to send the spam texts.

The Romney campaign has denied any involvement with the texts.

Mashable has reached out to ccAdvertising, and will update this post with any response. Meanwhile, if you've received an anti-Obama or anti-Romney text from a seemingly random anonymous number, share your story in the comments. Should political groups be allowed to mass-text phone numbers, do you think?

Mashable explores the trends changing politics in 2012 and beyond in Politics Transformed: The High Tech Battle for Your Vote, an in-depth look at how digital media is reshaping democracy.



Read a few of the top posts from the series:

Take it with you, buy Politics Transformed: The High Tech Battle for Your Vote on e-book and get access to four exclusive interviews!

Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, franckreporter