SmartMoney has a piece on the dangers of not reading the fine print when buying digital goods and ending up with large, unwanted charges. That’s nothing particularly new, but there are some good (scary) examples, and a few are mobile: “Sending a text message in support of your favorite houseguest on “Big Brother 8″? That’ll be $4.14, please — 15 cents for the text message and $3.99 per month for the news alert subscription it automatically signs you up for.” On the down side, you don’t need to input your billing details to get charged. On the plus side, the third point in the article points out that even though a sneaky trick is to offer a free ringtone or other content and then sign people up for an expensive subscription plan, the Mobile Marketing Association requires double opt-in…so as long as people don’t reply “yes” to the second message they shouldn’t be signed up to the subscription. If there isn’t a double opt-in the carrier should kick that content provider off the network. The universal “stop” command is also a good move in the right direction. All in all, while it’s a shame these dodgy practices happen at all it is simpler to avoid and/or get out of them than it was several years ago.
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