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Jamster Sued for Misleading Advertising

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews

April 8, 2005, 9:08 AM

A California resident has sued ringtone company Jamster over what he claims are misleading advertising practices that lure younger users into paying for text messages by advertising it as a "free ringtone." Charles Ford filed the lawsuit in a San Diego court, saying he was charged $1.99 plus normal carrier SMS fees.

Jamster is owned by VeriSign, a company that specializes in commerce applications and security. In recent weeks, ads have appeared more frequently in AOL Instant Messenger and MSN Messenger, causing some users to complain about the ads' obtrusiveness. "I don't know what they're thinking, I'd never buy anything from such an annoying company," one user named Loren recently wrote in his Web log.

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By eunichman

posted Apr 11, 2005 - 3:53 AM

Jamster cannot loose in this. the ads on both tv and radio clearly state that there is a charge of 1.99 to access their service. They cannot be held liable because some no brainer ignored their statements and expected totally free (they got free ringrines, they are paying for access to the service). theree is nothing that is totally free in the world,,, everything comes with a cost.

I am NO fan of Verisign, but I find they did no wrong in this instance

Score: 0

By tigger4046

posted Apr 10, 2005 - 5:53 PM

There must be some truth in this about the ads. Comedy Central would run those ads almost all day long inbetween programing. Really glad Jamster does not work with Virgin Mobile or it would have depleted my service. Now that i think about it, jamster sounded like a very ugly virus that just keept delivering one trojan after another. When refering to trojan, that is depicting off of "Here's a freebie, now enjoy super fees from here on out.. ha ha ha".

Score: 0

By hlesesne

posted Apr 10, 2005 - 1:14 PM

How about a directory or email list for unethical advertisers...

I posted a couple of my ideas regarding click automation for the greater good over here:

http://hal.lco.net/Perma...-977e-d33c89212eb7.aspx

Hal

Score: 0

By wincement

posted Apr 10, 2005 - 1:34 AM

I haven't seen a single Jamster ad since this article was published. Has anyone else noticed this or is it just me?

Score: 0

By davidtb

posted Apr 8, 2005 - 12:47 PM

Click on Jamster's ad.
The site you're visiting gets a few cents per click. Just don't buy anything.

my 2ยข
db.

Score: 0

By rav0

posted Apr 8, 2005 - 8:02 PM

you know jamster has server costs . . . listen to previews after clicking ads

That way they pay the site you saw the ad on, they pay their hosting provider for more usage, and we don't pay them! :)

Score: 0

By wincement

posted Apr 8, 2005 - 7:18 PM

Good point. We could take them down if everyone clicked on their ads and didn't buy anything. I'm going to click on every jamster ad I see now. I can't wait til they disappear.

Score: 0

By Portal3

posted Apr 9, 2005 - 6:38 AM

Are you proposing to Denial of Service Attack them?

Score: 0

By wincement

posted Apr 9, 2005 - 4:01 PM

ummm.... no. I wasn't planning on sending trillions of UDP packets to their servers... I'm not sure where you got that from...

Score: 0

By wincement

posted Apr 8, 2005 - 12:04 PM

Take them down!!! I hate those stupid ads.

Score: 0

By bourgeoisdude

posted Apr 11, 2005 - 4:42 PM

Um...you folks are very close to breaking the law here if not already, by proposing and/or endorsing illegal activities such as DoS the site. That'd be more fuel for them in a way, anyway.

Score: 0

By justinb

edited Apr 8, 2005 - 10:10 AM

the world isn't coming to an end after all! those ads are the most annoying things EVER. (and misleading also). i hope they get what's coming to them :|

Score: 0

By Portal3

posted Apr 9, 2005 - 6:44 AM

Uh, yeah. So advertisements are annoying? THEN STOP WATCHING COMMERCIAL TV AND GOING TO POOR WEBSITES!
The Internet offers a variety of alternatives to the "commercial stream" which is forcing peoples habits into not wanting to buy something because they're constantly being told "BUY THIS! IT'S GREAT!"
Beh, SMS is a joke and so is having images on phones. They're so underpowered that you may aswell have a minilaptop connected with Wi-Fi... but WiFi is limited to certain areas!?! So's peoples patience for crap being sent.
So to follow trends in seeing more crap on the Internet I'll press "Post Comment"

Score: 0

By horsecharles

posted Apr 8, 2005 - 10:08 AM

If you'll remember parent co. Verisign stealing domain registrations by tricking customers-- to boot months before they even needed to renew...the ploy was a double steal: it not only hurt its competitors, but individual customers who had already prepaid year(s) at a time would lose credit for several months ....

They needed to be punished, but in fact, they've been rewarded: just were re-appointed by ICANN.

It's sleazeballs like these that breed/foment all manner of communism & other leftist plus religious extremist movements....

Score: 0

By PhoenixPath

edited Apr 8, 2005 - 12:33 PM

roflmao.

Heh...lesee....blamed the company..blamed capitalism...threw in politics and relgion just for good measure...

We missing anything?

Needed a good laugh....thanks.

Score: 0

By wincement

edited Apr 8, 2005 - 12:08 PM

Wha? I was with you until the last sentence. That made no sense whatsoever.

Score: 0

By horsecharles

posted Apr 8, 2005 - 10:10 PM

Clarification:

There're plenty of people-- i'd say more than half the world's population-- who believe our type of capitalism is inherently evil or damaging at least: robbing the poor, etc.; and every time some ripoff company makes the news, it provides extra fodder for their mis-beliefs.
Just look at the least-extreme opposing view of capitalism: the Socialist EU and their heavy-handed & at times Orwellian business regulating & control...
Worse still, look at the Americas: 9 out of 10 countries have leftist guerilla movements(& of course, the counterpart right-wing death squads).
The same is true in most of Asia & Africa-- add to this ridiculous religious rules like no interest allowed on loans...

My point is: a capitalist company steals, it makes capitalism look bad; an American company steals, it makes America look bad; etc.-- this all encourages zealots, ignoramuses & rabble rousers.

Score: 0

By eunichman

edited Apr 11, 2005 - 3:59 AM

Capitalism is a much overused protection. ON PAPER, capitalism is nothing more than making money. no details, just making money. whether it be making money offering a service or making money offering a product.

ON PAPER, pyramid schemes are legal capitalism. But when you really look at it, ALL employment is a pyramid scheme, some fat cat on top doing little to nothing, making money off the management below them, who make money off the production of the workers below them. a big pyramid.

ON PAPER, ALL rellers are capitalists, no matter if they are raping the public with 2000% markups

ON PAPER, religions are practicing capitalism.. they offer the service of making one feel better about them self and make a collection for this service

ON PAPER, nearly every action where money is involved at some level, can be labelled capitalism.

Score: 0

By Ainvar

posted Apr 8, 2005 - 12:52 PM

Sheesh what will someone from california not sue for? Wait will I get sued now since I said that?

Heh I am ready to see some idiot from california to file a lawsuit for someone breathing the air next to them and then exhaling bad breath or some silly crap like this.

This reminds me of the brainless idiot that was trying to sue apple over itunes cause you need an ipod to listen to the files you buy, which is clearly stated on the website and any bit of commonsense would tell you that also.

Score: 0

By eunichman

posted Apr 11, 2005 - 4:01 AM

Living in California, I hereby excersize my right to file a class action suit against this poster on behalf of all californians, for defamation of character :) hehehehhehe

Score: 0

By BklynKid

posted Apr 8, 2005 - 11:40 PM

I never used iTunes... so when I pay $1 for a song I can't listen to it through iTunes? Or you mean when it comesto portable players, the user sued because he thought he could use some other brand player?

Score: 0

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