T-Mobile Sends G1 Android Data Users To The Slow Lane: 50kbps Over 1 Gig

from the slow-lane dept

There's a ton of predictable press coverage and reviews of T-Mobile's new G1 phone -- the first commercially available phone that uses Google's Android operating system -- but Broadband Reports has dug through the fine print of the user agreement and noticed something rather interesting. While the marketing materials scream out about a $25 "unlimited" data plan, the fine print notes that if you go over 1Gig per month, the rest of your data traffic that month may be slowed down to a piddling 50kbps. So, before you get that G1 and plan to surf away, recognize that while, unlimited, T-Mobile apparently has no intention of letting you actually surf with any reasonable bandwidth after a certain point.

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News You Could Do Without

by Mike Masnick

Tue, Jul 22nd 2008 9:04pm

Time Warner Cable Using Incentives And Fine Print To Lock Customers Into Broadband Caps

from the read-the-fine-print dept

Back in January, Time Warner Cable admitted that it was considering adding usage caps and overage fees to broadband users. It recently started signing up new customers for these offerings (sometimes with absurdly low usage caps). Of course, it knows it can't just change existing customers over to such plans, realizing they'd be in for quite a set of lawsuits for selling people one thing and then completely changing the terms. However, it's now working on a way around this: trying to convince existing customers to upgrade to special triple play packages with "locked in" pricing for a year and then burying in the fine print that they also agree to the usage caps. Sneaky. Soon it won't be long before you won't be able to change anything on your plan without also agreeing to the new usage caps.

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Scams

by Mike Masnick

Fri, Jun 13th 2008 4:38pm

'Free Software' Scammers Fined $2.2 Million

from the this-is-not-the-'free'-business-model-we're-talking-about dept

We've seen various incarnations of the scam (often found in infomercials) where a company offers you something for "free," but in the fine print, you're really signing up for an ongoing paid service. For years, some of the biggest "ringtone" companies made much of their money this way, offering "free" or cheap ringtones that actually involved the user signing up for a monthly service without realizing it. The infamous "Video Professor" has been accused of running a similar system, though the company vehemently denies this.

Either way, it appears that the FTC is starting to crack down on some of these practices, fining a competitor to "Video Professor," called ThinkAll, $2.2 million. Apparently ThinkAll took this scam to a new level. It offered "free" software, where you simply had to pay for the shipping and handling -- though, it sounds like that was really just so the company could get your credit card on file. After receiving that first free CD, customers were offered 3 more titles totally free (not even any shipping). If you decided to accept that software (and why wouldn't you?) it made you check a box saying you had read the terms of service. Of course no one reads the full terms of service, which include (hidden down in the 7th paragraph) the fact that in accepting this "free" software, you're actually agreeing to sign up for a monthly fee-based service. Quite sneaky... until the FTC stepped in. Hopefully other businesses take notice and start avoiding these types of scams.

32 Comments | Leave a Comment..

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T-Mobile Sends G1 Android Data Users To The Slow Lane: 50kbps Over 1 Gig

from the slow-lane dept

Time Warner Cable Using Incentives And Fine Print To Lock Customers Into Broadband Caps

from the read-the-fine-print dept

'Free Software' Scammers Fined $2.2 Million

from the this-is-not-the-'free'-business-model-we're-talking-about dept

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