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The Telecom Digest for November 15, 2012
Volume 31 : Issue 267 : "text" Format
====== 31 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======
|
Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the
Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Bill Horne and
the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other
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are definitely unwelcome.
We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we
are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because
we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands
against crime. - Geoffrey Welsh
See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details
and the name of our lawyer, and other stuff of interest.
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Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2012 22:19:06 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Papa John's faces class-action suit for alleged barrage of spam texts
Message-ID: <p06240803ccc8bdf79565@[10.0.1.6]>
Papa John's faces class-action suit for alleged barrage of spam texts
Plaintiffs say pizza chain hired company to serve thousands of unwanted texts.
by Megan Geuss
Nov 13 2012
Ars Technica
A judge from the Western District of Washington Seattle Court
approved a class action suit against Papa John's on Friday. The
plaintiffs, three people from Washington State, are standing in for
thousands of customers claiming that Papa John's and a marketing firm
called OnTime4U worked together to send spam texts to customers who
hadn't given their consent to be texted with marketing information,
violating the US Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991.
The Seattle law firm Heyrich Kalish McGuigan is representing the
plaintiffs. It claims Papa John's customers received 500,000 unwanted
text messages nationally, and the firm also claims this could cost
Papa John's $500 per text message (a bill that would tally up to $250
million). While such a large payout is highly unlikely, a
class-action payout may be in the future for the pizza chain.
The order granting a motion for class action says Papa John's LLC
worked with OnTime4U and encouraged their individual franchisees to
cooperate with the company. OnTime4U then solicited the franchisees
for lists of their customers' phone numbers (which most
pizza-delivery stores keep for speedy phone-orders). OnTime4U then
removed the land-line numbers, and texted promotional messages to the
rest.
...
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/papa-johns-faces-class-action-suit-for-alleged-barrage-of-spam-texts/
***** Moderator's Note *****
When clerks at the supermarket ask for my phone number, I always
lie. They don't want to call me: they want to sell my buying habits,
and I resent it.
I'm going to write a book about how our privacy was stolen, one
molecule at a time.
Bill Horne
Moderator
Moderators Note Copyright (C) 2012 E.W. Horne. All Rights Reserved.
Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2012 13:32:41 -0500
From: Pete Cresswell <PeteCress@invalid.telecom-digest.org>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Papa John's faces class-action suit for alleged barrage of spam texts
Message-ID: <ifo7a8pqig4ffka18thna1mll0avehh23t@4ax.com>
Per Moderator's Note:
>When clerks at the supermarket ask for my phone number, I always
>lie. They don't want to call me: they want to sell my buying habits,
>and I resent it.
I tell them straight-up: I don't want to give them a phone
number.
My fallback position in the event that somebody digs their heels
in ("...well, the system needs a phone number...." or "Nobody
will call unless there is a problem... we just need the
number...") is the phone number of my congressman, who has been
spamming me mercilessly ever since I supplied an email address to
the local civic association.
Come to think of it.... maybe I just ought to give out that
number no matter what..... -)
--
Pete Cresswell
Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2012 09:59:28 -0500
From: T <kd1s.nospam@cox.nospam.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: The Smart TV Viewer's Bill Of Rights
Message-ID: <MPG.2b0d7bdffa3bcc79989d3b@news.eternal-september.org>
In article <p062408a0ccc21a60a9e4@[10.0.1.11]>, monty@roscom.com says...
>
> The Smart TV Viewer's Bill Of Rights
>
> by Jim Monroe
> Nov 6, 2012
> MediaPost
>
> Silicon Valley innovation has given television executives plenty to
> worry about. In my years with NBC-at the network as well as in the
> station group-we worried about cable splintering our audience. We
> worried about DVRs skipping our commercials and high definition
> revealing our wrinkles.
>
> We never worried whether people knew how to work their TV sets.
>
> However in the new world of connected TV, finding and watching
> Internet-delivered shows is a challenge, even for tech-savvy viewers.
> So in addition to fretting about all the things we can't control, we
> now need to worry about one thing we can: complicated smart TVs.
>
> Here's the problem: When you plug in connected TVs, you get a really
> big version of the iPad, complete with App Store and apps-some free,
> some paid. This seems to make sense. After all, apps enable our
> tablets and phones to do amazing things, so why not use that same
> concept to expand the capabilities of our big flat-panel TVs?
>
> Here's why not: By enabling our living room TVs to do more, we are
> making it harder for them to do what we bought them for in the first
> place-bring us great TV.
>
> There are three significant (and frankly, obvious) differences
> between tablets and TVs that suggest we need to rethink the current
> approach to connected TVs.
>
> ...
>
>
> http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/186757/the-smart-tv-viewers-bill-of-rights.html
>
>
> ***** Moderator's Note *****
>
> What networks fear more than anything else is the loss of control.
>
> Bill Horne
> Moderator
Part of the trouble with net based video is the insane copyright issues.
Netflix Watch Instantly is a perfect example - videos now come with
expiration dates. Or they'll have one of a series of videos but not the
others because the copyright holder thinks they can extract more dollars
our of DVD and Blu-Ray sales.
Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2012 22:21:06 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: iOS apps hijack Twitter accounts, post false "confessions" of piracy
Message-ID: <p06240804ccc8be65af31@[10.0.1.6]>
iOS apps hijack Twitter accounts, post false "confessions" of piracy
Dictionary app maker's move is the very definition of how not to fight theft.
by Jon Brodkin
Nov 13 2012
Ars Technica
An iOS application developer has come up with an extreme way of
fighting software piracy-by auto-posting "confessions" to its users'
Twitter accounts.
If you search Twitter for the hashtag #softwarepirateconfession
you'll find a stream of tweets stating, "How about we all stop using
pirated iOS apps? I promise to stop. I really will.
#softwarepirateconfession." There are many dozens of these tweets in
the past day alone, all identical. So what's happening? It turns out
that Enfour, the maker of a variety of dictionary apps, is
auto-posting tweets to users' accounts to shame them for being
pirates. But the auto-tweeting seems to be affecting a huge portion
of its paid user base, not just those who actually stole the apps.
An apology in Japanese was posted on the Japan-based Enfour's site,
listing affected products including more than a dozen English
dictionary and thesaurus apps, such as American Heritage, Collins,
and Australian Oxford dictionaries. There are another half-dozen or
so Japanese language apps affected as well.
...
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/ios-apps-hijack-twitter-accounts-post-false-confessions-of-piracy/
Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2012 22:12:40 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Google Fiber is live in Kansas City, real-world speeds at 700 Mbps
Message-ID: <p06240801ccc8bc442f77@[10.0.1.6]>
Google Fiber is live in Kansas City, real-world speeds at 700 Mbps
Startup founder: "It's unbelievable. I'm probably not going to leave
the house."
by Cyrus Farivar
Nov 13 2012
Ars Technica
Mike Demarais posted this to Twitter during the first few minutes
that Google Fiber went live in his Kansas City home.
After months of fanfare and anticipation, gigabit home Internet
service Google Fiber finally went live on Tuesday in Kansas City. The
search giant is offering 1 Gbps speeds for just $70 per
month-significantly faster and cheaper than what any traditional
American ISPs are offering.
...
http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/11/google-fiber-is-live-in-kansas-city-real-world-speeds-at-700-mbps/
***** Moderator's Note *****
When they have enough bandwidth to beam down groceries and beer to my
house, then I'll get interested.
Bill Horne
Moderator
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