That article is actually hilarious in how bad it is.

Lines like this one:

"The message was so convincing that the iPhone Anita was using believed it was genuine and listed it directly underneath the real message from that bank."

Show a complete misunderstanding of how SMS works. SMS is like email in that who it comes from is simply a type of header, which when sending from a mobile phone isn't editable - when a message arrives your phone can't verify where it actually came from. In particular given banks don't send from an official number, they send from a text name.

When using Skype messaging to a mobile number, you can enter your real mobile number as the 'from' address (In Skype settings). To do this Skype first sends you a confirmation message to the number you want to send from. I'm going to assume the confirmation message is Skype being curious, and that the same technology could be used without confirmation. Or is this an agreement with the mobile operators?

I disagree. SMS spoofing is a serious problem but not such a gigantic privacy issue as sending my phone number to every website I visit.

If it were merely some string that uniquely identifies me across different domains no matter how many times I reset my browse, it'd already be a privacy disaster. But making it my actual phone number? That's... just.. horrible.