In a rather unusual step, web behemoth Google has decided to share with us an internal letter sent round to all staff last week detailing the company line on 'open' - what it stands for, what they should be working towards and so on.

Firstly, senior vice president of product management, Jonathan Rosenberg, differentiates between open technology and open information. The first, he says, is about open source and open standards and the latter refers to when Google holds information about an individual in order to provide them with a useful service, "we are transparent about what information we have about them, and we give them ultimate control over their information".

Now no one would argue that Google has done a lot in the former category, with Android, the Chrome web browser and operating system, Google Gears and many other projects, but, ahem, the second area becomes a bit more problematic for Sneak.

 "Google is not the Hotel California -- you can check out any time you like and you CAN, in fact, leave!", says Rosenberg. Well, yes, technically, but if you've invested several years worth of emails in Gmail would you really want you?

Sneak is still not altogether sure information disclosure and Google sit that well together, especially when its chief executive comes out and says "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."

So, nice try Google, but it'll take a bit more than a massively long blog posting on 'openness' to convince us this is really at the heart of what you do.

Posted by Phil Muncaster on December 23, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (0)

More odd news from AT&T with its plan to solve its reputation for dropped calls and low data rates - make it too expensive for people to use.

After all these years listening to network operators whinge about how little people are using mobile data services today's news that AT&T wants to price users off its network has come as something of a surprise.

Speaking at an event in New York head of consumer services Ralph de la Vega said that the company was investigating ways to get people using the most data to "reduce or modify their usage."

He continued that some sort of data pricing was inevitable, compared to today's free service for smartphone users.

"We need to educate the customer ... We've got to get them to understand what represents a megabyte of data," de la Vega said, according to Associated Press.

"We're improving all our systems to let consumers get real-time information on their data usage."

He said that three per cent of AT&T's customers consumed 40 per cent of the bandwidth. AT&T's network has been suffering connection problems, particularly in San Francisco and New York he said.

The biggest bandwidth hogs are streaming video and audio sites, with internet radio a major culprit.

It's a similar argument we saw from ISPs a few years ago. Go unlimited until the market is big enough and then start charging more and more for the data. Then it was the file sharers who were the reason for charging. If mobile piracy ever takes off expect to get hit in the pocket.

Posted by Iain Thomson on December 10, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Normally we have to wait until CES for the smartphone market to heat back up again, but it appears as if some yuletide legal wranglings could add a bit of drama to the holiday season.

Just as Verizon's legal department was getting over their hangovers from the victory in the AT&T Map battle, a new round of legal woes could be bearing down on the company: the FCC recently said that it would begin an investigation into the way the company treats its outgoing customers.

At the heart of the matter is Verizon's practice of charging early termination fees to customers who wish to cancel their service with the company while still under contract. Recently, Verizon has doubled the fee for smartphone customers from $175 to $350. The fee is meant to help the company recoup some of the costs of subsidizing a phone which the company would otherwise pick up over

Now, the FTC wants the company to come forward and explain why. The commission has set a Dec 18 deadline for Verizon to address the issue and explain why it has decided to double cost suddenly.

This is where Verizon's and Motorola's aggressive campaign against Apple and AT&T could come back to haunt them a bit. As anyone who has watched the ads can tell, the iPhone is the primary target, meaning that Verizon seeks to make a huge dent in the consumer smartphone space.

As such, opponents of the company could possibly make the case that doubling the fee is an effort to keep consumers locked in should they buy the droid and then decide that the handset was not worth the hype.

Could be an interesting holiday season in the smartphone world.

Posted by Shaun Nichols on December 4, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (0)

AT&T is becoming something of a laughing stock over its legal battles with Verizon but plenty of its customers aren't amused.

AT&T recently went to court with Verizon because the competitor started an advertising campaign pointing out what many iPhone users already know - the network has very limited 3G coverage.

Unfortunately for AT&T the map Verizon shows is correct and it can prove it. It was left to AT&T to slink away with its tail between its legs.

Now the company has more woes. It has just been ranked dead last in customer satisfaction poll carried out by the influential by Consumer Reports.

Consumer Reports polled 50,000 readers in 26 cities and they gave AT&T the lowest customer satisfaction ranking in 19 of these cities, especially for voice service and customer support. By contrast Verizon topped the poll.

The report highlights what has been a tough year for AT&T. With exclusive rights to the iPhone you'd think the company would be in a strong position but success has come at a price.

The surge in iPhone users has meant a lot more mobile data being used. While this is a good thing it's been clear for some time that AT&T didn't have the infrastructure to handle that much data.

The company is investing in improving this by putting up new cell towers but it still has a long way to go, and surveys like this don't make its task any easier.

Posted by Iain Thomson on December 2, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (2)