A class action lawsuit against T-Mobile received new life yesterday after a Seattle federal judge ruled that it could move forward. The suit, which comes as text messages fees are on the rise, alleges that T-Mobile is allowing subscribers few options to avoid spam text messages. Since customers are charged for all incoming texts, whether solicited or not, the suit argues that subscribers must either eat the costs or end their service contracts early, which could result in an early termination fee of up to $175.
While some other carriers let customers block text messages completely, T-Mobile does not offer such an option due to "system restrictions."
Instead, subscribers most log in to their online T-Mobile account to set messaging filters. In a statement to RCR Wireless News, T-Mobile said it "is committed to providing the best customer experience in wireless and does offer customers the ability to block chargeable text messages, MMS, IM, and e-mail from being sent to their handsets at no additional charge."
I've been very popular on Twitter lately. Too bad it's not personal. Many subscribers seem to be gaining more attention than they've earned, and probably a good deal more than they want.
This past month has seen a surge in Twitter spam, subscriptions from followers who have created faux accounts to advertise their links or wares. The noticeable uptick has alarmed the blogosphere enough to warrant journalistic notice, off the record in intra-office chatter and on it. The disingenuous among my own modest list of followers don't appear to be peddling anything other than URLs, but it matters little. I have declared them a nuisance. The squatters must go.
These 'people' are not my friends.
(Credit: CNET Networks)Unlike Facebook, which requires dual authentication before friends make it onto the social roster, Twitter attachments can be single-sided. I've never had reason to block anyone before, but scooping off the scattered scum is proving more tedious than it should. From the list of followers on Twitter.com there is the option to subscribe to a user's updates or to block them. Blocking one user resets the follower list, putting you back at the starting point of your multipage count. That's fine if all your new "pals" cluster on Page 1, but crummy if they're spread between Pages 4, 7, and 10. Simple pagination would simplify the task, as would the ability to batch process blocking.
Up until about a week ago, Twitter's API was itself the meta-blocker of a different sort, barring developers from building the rejection feature into third-party services. Now the capability is turned on, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone confirmed, though documentation won't be broadly shared until "some time next week." At that point, third-party services like Twhirl, a desktop client that adds all sorts of goodies to the Twitter experience, would be able to let users block stalkers by hovering over their icons from a scrolling interface.
For a service this popular, better native blocking tools should be a no-brainer. Hopefully they will be before the spam really catches on. In the meantime, you can at least pick out the fictitious followers using Twitter Twerp Scan, an app we learned about from DownloadSquad. Twitter Twerp Scan quickly calculates the ratio of friends to followers for each of your fans. Subscribers with high ratios follow many more tweeters, but are not followed in turn. The raked popularity count makes them likely spammers who you don't have to feel guilty about cutting out.
If you simply must send a YouTube video to every single person you are connected to, Movial says it will make that possible.
The 6-year-old company makes a white label application for a PC, phone, or any device that wireless carriers can brand as their own. Called Social Communicator, it shows all of a user's contacts and their online status. All at once, instant messages, text messages, music files, or videos can be sent to all contacts listed.
The demonstration here at Demo focused on sending YouTube videos to everyone or anyone. Individual contacts can be selected ,and even if they don't have Social Communicator installed, the message will still be sent. It's unclear how you decline video spam from your "friends."
The New Year's resolution might be way up there on the great list of journalism clichés, but that's no reason not to go back to the well and see what our pals in the tech industry are pledging to do in 2008, at least as far as their gear and gadgets are concerned.
"Make spam a priority, and eliminate clutter." --Don Sears, eWeek.com
"Hack and/or overclock what I have more, so that I don't have to always race out to get the latest and greatest. And buy an iPhone if they ever finally add proper word processing." -- Darren Gladstone, Games for Windows magazine
"In an era of Blu-ray vs. HD DVD, Facebook vs. Twitter, blogs vs. magazines, less family time than hyperproductive hours, and more gadgets with more gee-whiz features than common sense, it's important to never lose sight of the medium's most important benefits and greatest applications." --Scott Steinberg, DigitalTrends.com
"Play the Wii more, so I don't feel guilty about all the dust it gathers." --Alex Brewer, HighWater Group
My New Year's tech resolution is somewhat less ambitious--I'm pledging to clean out my wire box.
A few weeks ago at Digital Life, I attended the Virtual Army Experience, a big promotional "virtual reality" game that emulated a mission in the U.S. Army. It was pretty fun, and I generally enjoyed the experience despite its poorly masked primary purpose as a recruitment tool.
Unfortunately, the Army hasn't stopped calling me since I tried the Virtual Army Experience.
When I took the Virtual Army Experience, I had to give contact information. This didn't surprise me, and I used my work e-mail and phone number. I thought maybe I'd get an e-mail or two, and I could just laugh it off as typical. I mean, this is a recruitment tool, it's not that surprising.
So far I've gotten four Army recruitment e-mails and two voice mail messages from Army recruiters. At my work e-mail and voice mail. The first mail was the follow-up I expected: a simple promotional mail thanking (insert person) for taking the Virtual Army Experience at (insert event), here's a brochure with information on joining the Army. But then I started getting the same "eligibility survey" three times in a row:
"Thank you for your interest in the United States Army. A short while ago you requested information regarding the United States Army and enlistment opportunities. This may have been in the form of a T-shirt and video, a ball cap, an information packet, or some other promotional item. We hope this information was received quickly and was useful to you. Now that you have had some time to examine your information, we are contacting you to see if you would like to know more about your options and opportunities in the United States Army and Army Reserve."
This is in addition to the two calls I've gotten from recruiters asking to send more information about joining the Army. These messages were left on my office voice mail, which clearly state I'm an assistant editor at CNET.
I'm not upset and I'm not all that surprised by this. It's just pretty darn funny. Regardless of politics, I'm an asthmatic nerd and one of the last people you'd want to join the armed forces. Let this be a clear lesson that free games and events like the Virtual Army Experience and America's Army are, above all else, recruitment tools. If you sign up for them, they'll think you're interested in joining the army.
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