RSSJamster Tries to Clean Up its Act
By Ed Oswald | Published November 21, 2005, 12:50 PM
The company that was made famous with its annoying yet popular Crazy Frog ringtone is trying to make peace with angry parents. Under investigation in the UK and sued in California for its business practices, Jamster rolled out a brand new ad campaign along with parental controls over downloading.
Parents are now able to enter phone numbers into Jamster's new Guardian service that would block those phones from downloading content. Critics of the service say the company misleads customers by advertising free ring tones that actually cost SMS charges in addition to a $1.99 fee. VeriSign, the company that now owns Jamster, believes these new features will help to allay such concern.
In the U.K. the TV advert for their ringtones was on every channel, satellite included. Each download cost £2 or $3.60.
What they didn't say was once you downloaded one, they continued to send more.
The authorities were inundated with complaints because many people who tried to cancel were ignored.
It was not unusual for people to end up with massive bills for all these downloads and no credit left on their phones.
The "parental controls" are a whitewash, which simply will not work.
If they had implemented "honest" business practices i.e. limit downloads to one with no further forced downloads, that would have been a better course of action.
Is there a parent out there that knows what their teenager is doing all the time. I can just imagine a 15 year old asking their parents for permission to download. Get real!
I really hope the U.K. trading standards hit them with a bill for millions due to their previous dishonest practices.
Score: 0
|What. Ever.
Boycott Jamster.
or better yet, click on all of their ads, and close the window immediately after. They'll go broke for all the click-through fees they'll have to pay with no returns to show for it.
Score: 0
|What, you don't like the crazyfrog? LMAO
Score: 0
|It's not the $1.99 ringtone; it's the "subscription service" that comes with it. That's the unethical and nearly hidden part. It's not like kids are buying one ringtone and their parents are pissed about $2. It's the $2/day charges, and stuff like that.
Score: 0
|Paradise-FH-, It actually is VeriSign, that appears to just be a typo. See here: http://www.jamster.com/s...amster_us/about_us.html
Score: 0
|VerSign eh? wow that's ridiculously close to VeriSign.
Score: 0
|pc usb cable for most cellphones cost less than 20bucks...once u have that install the proper software...and bingo use p2p software to download all ur mp3's then upload them to ur phone!!! duhhh how easy and @ that point FREE!!!
Score: 0
|As annoying as they may be you can't ban a ringtone for God's sake. That would be a violation of first ammendmant rights. Doesn't matter how annoying it is, if I wanna play it on my cell phone I can.
VeriSign is becoming infamous for such tactics. I remember when they were trying to steal control of all unused .com domains so it would show their ads. VeriSign is no longer a company we can trust.
Score: 0
|I must have missed the part in the story where it said they were banning people from having a ringtone? Perhaps you should read the story again before becoming outraged at your constitutional rights being eroded.
Score: 0
|I hated that dam flash logo,evil I tell you evil
Score: 0
|Definitely time to shutdown these companies that sell VERY ANNOYING ringtones to unsuspecting KIDS!
Ban the companies, ban the ringtones and ban those annoying advertisements on the TV too.
100% misleading and always targeted at little kids who don't know they're signing up for these charges.
Score: 0
|If the kids want them, let them have them...
I believe that kids under 13 should not be allowed mobile (cell) phones anyway, due to effects of magnetic whatever they call it, but thats just me :P
Score: 0
|Most annoying ring tones ever, they should be shot for inventing them in the first place!
Score: 0
|