Ouch, I got wind of this class action suit today on RCRNews. Sprint is being accused of some allegedly questionable practices and it appears that they’re seeking in excess of 5m dollars. As I read through the complaint it sounds fairly serious but it’s also clear that this is going to hinge on I think the meaning of the word adequate. In almost all of the complaints it seems to boil down to “adequately notify”.

RCRNews accurately quoted one of the complaints in their article today, its #20 in the factual background. But there’s more in the complaint that’s worth mentioning.

If that’s not bad enough, it allegedly gets worse. Sprint is also accused of extending consumer contracts by actively marketing existing customer’s new products and services without adequately informing the consumer that acceptance would result in a contract extension.

The complaint also alleges that Sprint Nextel…

• Offered courtesy discounts without adequately notifying consumers that by receiving the discount their contract was extended or a new contract was created.
• When some consumers have requested a copy of the alleged new contract or evidence there was a contract extension, Sprint allegedly stated that they didn’t have a copy which they insist the consumer is bound and refused to provide a copy of the contract outlining the terms.

Here’s a copy of the complaint (23 pages).

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I think Robert Scoble has it right, Google is posturing for the sake of posturing and in the end they won’t care because they’re focused on Mobile. I’d be too, heck Google already owns search and that’s not going to change anytime soon just because Microsoft acquires Yahoo is it? Google has the better product and consumers know it. Microsoft would need to acquire Google to change that fact.

Oh and you gotta love Roberts analogies… put two turkeys together and you don’t get an eagle… beautiful!

So, why are they focused on mobile? Naturally, it’s to increase their advertising dominance. Mobile is without doubt going to evolve in 2008.

“It’s the recreation of the Internet, it’s the recreation of the PC (personal computer) story and it is before us — and it is very likely it will happen in the next year,”

That quote is from Eric Schmidt at the World Economic Forum. Google believes that mobile is gonna be huge. Those of us following mobile believe it to. I see the explosion coming when we’re all smartphone enabled. Sorta like the Windows 95 event. What about you?

Hat tip to i2sms for the Reuters article.

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The Boston Globe published interesting Associated Press mobile marking article today regarding advertising on cellphones.

The carriers are more than a little spooked at the location based services that everyone believes are right around the corner. Guess why? The carriers are afraid that some of their customers might not be all that jazzed to receive a location based offer from a Merchant while standing in or near the Merchants store. So much so they believe that some of their customers will get annoyed and switch to a rival service.

Look at this quote from the article:

“We have great expenses with customers leaving one company and going to another,” Verizon Wireless spokesman Jeffrey Nelson said. “One thing I can guarantee Verizon Wireless will not do is get a bump of short-term advertising dollars while scaring and losing our customers in the process.”

Ah, the dreaded switch. That sounds like it’s more about money than privacy for Verizon doesn’t it? Someone might want to remind Jeffery that the consumer pays too… something along the lines of early termination fee.

We haven’t even come close to hearing the last of this topic; privacy groups are going to be all over this issue in 2008 as this technology grows and mobile advertising spending increases. Not to mention Google released a mobile web app earlier this year that is capable of pinpointing your mobile phone location w/o gps.

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There was a really interesting article written by Eric Sylvers in the International Herald Tribune Sunday titled Start-ups aiming for cheaper text messages; I’m just getting around to reading it because it was buried in one of my many FireFox tabs that I have open. Remember Monday when I said I didn’t have a twitter addiction? Well, I have a browser tab addiction… can’t get enough of em.

Anyhow, it’s worth the read if you haven’t already. Eric covers the enormous amount of profit baked into SMS at the carrier level and predicts that the carriers will put up one heck of a fight to protect that profit turf against companies that want to make SMS free. JackSMS and Skeeby are the two startups aspiring to bring the disruption.

Here’s a quote from the article that underscores just how big the disruption might be.

“In 2010 about 2.3 trillion text messages will be sent worldwide, generating $72.5 billion for the operators, according to forecasts released last year by Gartner Dataquest. Most of that turns into profit, because the profit margin on text messaging hovers around 90 percent, more than double what operators get on voice services.”

Dang, 90%!

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Off topic alert

Wow! Clever approach too… the whole privacy/info security direction.

“This country doesn’t permit the phone company to listen to what you say and use that information to target ads. The computer industry doesn’t permit a software company to record everything we type and use that information to target ads. Yet with this merger, Google seeks to record nearly everything you see and do on the Internet and use that information to target ads. Indeed, one question is whether this merger will create a whole new meaning to the term “being Googled.”

That was a quote from Brad Smith, VP and senior general counsel of Microsoft; made before the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights. Testimony was also provided by several others regarding the examination of the Google DoubleClick merger.

What’s your take, do you believe that Google should be allowed to purchase DoubleClick?

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If your mobile web application has Vodafone UK users there’s a good chance it’s broke this morning. Vodafone began removing key elements of the mobile browser user agent strings which isn’t going to play nice with the applications that rely on those user agent strings. That’s a really sneaky move, and it’s going over like a lead balloon about right now.

Luca has a very detailed Vodafone rant covering this in technical detail. I don’t believe we’ve heard the last of it either. Vodafone, usually the way it works is that you want to embrace the developers so they’ll build cool stuff around your services… this is called an ecosystem, you guys just polluted yours. When you have a healthy ecosystem with cool stuff consumers will gravitate in your direction.

The irony is that there’s a banner on the Vodafone home page that reads “Find Out How To Work Smarter“, guess they didn’t read that huh?

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I’m at lunch so I gotta make this quick… remember last Month when I said Verizon and their market cap was big enough to launch one across the bow of Google? They just did according to Om.

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