Hasta La Gadget!

Since its March 26 unveiling, T-Mobile has been aggressively pushing the plan changes it has made, alterations that it says make it America’s “Uncarrier.” Such claims were challenged in Washington, where the state Attorney General’s Office initiated an investigation into the carrier’s advertisements. The investigation resulted with T-Mobile being accused of making deceptive statements about its plans.

The issue at play is that T-Mobile makes claims that seem to be contradicted by the fine-print in its uncarrier plans, which are promised to have no restrictions and yearly contracts. Such is the case with plans that aren’t accompanied by a cell phone, but not with plans where the customer gets a phone, which they are required to keep under T-Mobile service for two years or pay the device’s full retail price upon dropping the service.

Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson said of the matter: “In our view, those advertisements were quite deceptive.” And one of the attorney’s working the investigation, Paula Sellis, expounded on that, saying: “You had to dig very deeply to understand what the terms of the program were, and you had to put two and two together.” T-Mobile doesn’t agree with their conclusion, as you might expect, but has agreed to change its advertisements and to offer customers a refund.

Says T-Mobile:

As America’s Un-carrier, our goal is to increase transparency with our customers, unleashing them from restrictive long-term service contracts — this kind of simple, straightforward approach is core to the new company we are building. While we believe our advertising was truthful and appropriate, we voluntarily agreed to this arrangement with the Washington AG in this spirit

According to Tech Hive, no customers complained about T-Mobile’s claims and services, with the investigation being prompted by the advertisements the carrier put out. For its part, T-Mobile has to pay $26,046 in costs and fees, has agreed to make its consequences of cancellation, true costs, and terms more clear, and to train its staff within the next 21 days to provide this information. Those who subscribed to one of the uncarrier’s plans by today are eligible for a full refund upon service cancellation.

[via Tech Hive]

T-Mobile settles “uncarrier” deceptive claims dispute with refunds and ad changes is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Google released its seventh transparency report today, which highlights the number of takedown requests that Google receives on a bi-yearly basis. This time around, Google received 2,285 government requests to remove 24,179 pieces of content off of Google’s search engine between July 2012 and December 2012, which is a record high.

That number is up from the 1,811 takedown requests made regarding 18,070 pieces of content during the previous half of 2012, and it’s the highest number of takedown requests that Google has seen during a six-month period since the search giant began to offer transparency reports three years ago.

Google’s legal director, Susan Infantino, says that “it’s become increasingly clear that the scope of government attempts to censor content on Google services has grown,” and she notes that “in more places than ever, we’ve been asked by governments to remove political content that people post on” various Google services.

The most notable spike came from Brazil, which saw a sharp increase from the last transparency report. Google received 697 requests in Brazil, most of which were court orders. This is up from 191 during the first half of 2012. Google says that the reason for the steep increase was due to the municipal elections, which took place during the fall.

Google sees record increase in government takedown requests is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Google is offering to promote content from search engine rivals such as Bing and Yahoo in an attempt to placate the European Commission, hoping to escape expensive censure with more openness in what results users see. The deal, which would last for five years according to Google, comes amid an investigation into accusations of web search dominance in Europe; in addition to featuring competitors’ results near to its own services, Google has suggested it could better label its own links to services.

Such labels would affect how Google’s specialized services – such as Google Shopping and Google Places – integrate their results into the regular search stream. Currently, the search giant “prominently displays links to its own specialised search services within its web search results and does not inform users of this favourable treatment” according to the EC, with rival options either pushed down the page or omitted altogether.

“The Commission is concerned that this practice unduly diverts traffic away from Google’s competitors in specialised search towards Google’s own specialised search services. It therefore reduces the ability of consumers to find a potentially more relevant choice of specialised search services. Since Google is an important source of traffic for competing specialised search services, this may reduce competitors’ incentives to innovate in specialised search” EC

Google has said it could use a frame around its own services’ results, so as to more clearly indicate to users that they’re enjoying special treatment, in addition to showing “links to three rival specialised search services close to its own services, in a place that is clearly visible to users.” Third-parties unhappy with how Google had indexed them and offered up their content could more readily opt-out from specialized search, in a process that “does not unduly affect the ranking of those web sites in Google’s general web search results.”

Further concessions include more freedom for advertisers, allowing them greater liberty to manage campaigns across multiple platforms, and to “no longer include in its agreements with publishers any written or unwritten obligations that would require them to source online search advertisements exclusively from Google”.

A one month trial in the market will take place, allowing Google’s rivals, content owners, and users to give feedback as to whether the system is seen to have been successful or not. If the proposals are fully accepted, the EC would likely install an “independent Monitoring Trustee” who would be responsible for making sure Google behaved as it had promised.

However, even if Google escapes more dramatic censure this time, the EC says it is still investigating other allegations made against the company. Those include Android-related business practices. The company also faces potentially huge fines for how it handled privacy policy changes in 2012.

[via TNW]

Google offers rival links in search to escape Euro antitrust penalties is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

HTC has released an official statement regarding a recent press release stating that Nokia was granted a preliminary injunction against the HTC One. HTC stated that Nokia did not obtain an injunction against the HTC One, but instead obtained an injunction only against STMicroelectronics. STMicroelectronics is being sued for breaching an exclusivity agreement with Nokia by supplying HTC with the high amplitude mics that were exclusively designed for Nokia’s Lumia line-up.

The microphone in question is the TD V1.4 high amplitude microphone that was supposed to be an exclusive to Nokia, but somehow found its way into HTC’s inventory in the Netherlands. While the mic is exclusive to Nokia, the Dutch court ruled, however, that HTC can continue to use the microphones it purchased for its products because “they were purchased in good-faith”. The court also ruled that STMicroelectronics is restricted from providing certain microphones to other companies other than Nokia for a 10-month period.

Nokia attempted to recall the microphones already sold to HTC, however, it was unable to do so. Nonetheless, HTC has stated that once it has used up its supply of the microphones, it will “transition to improved microphone designs”. This new official statement from HTC does clear up the previous press release from Nokia, which stated that,

“The Amsterdam District Court has today granted Nokia’s request for a preliminary injunction against the supply to HTC of microphone components invented by and manufactured exclusively for Nokia.”

Many of us assumed the injunction was against the HTC One because nowhere in the press release was “STMicroelectronics” mentioned. Nokia also ended the press release with,

“Once again, Nokia calls on HTC to compete using its own innovations and to stop copying from Nokia.”

Nonetheless, HTC is in the clear now, as the court ruled that it’s “blameless” because it couldn’t have known that those microphones were exclusive to Nokia. However, HTC still has to deal with the other injunction Nokia filed against it in Germany. HTC plans on appealing the injunction and also plans on proving that the patents that it allegedly infringed on are all invalid. You’ll all be happy to know that the HTC One will not be delayed and will remain available worldwide. Be sure to check out our review of the HTC One here.

HTC: Nokia did not obtain an injunction against the HTC One is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Tesla‘s dealership struggles continue, with electric car company founder Elon Musk confirming that the Virginia DMV has denied the marque a dealer license in the state. “Not all good news” Musk took to Twitter to complain, “Virginia DMV Commissioner just denied Tesla a dealer license, despite Hearing Officer being in favor.” Tesla’s application for the license had been opposed by the Virginia Automobile Dealers Association.

That opposition echoes similar complaints by dealership groups in Texas that the EV company should not be allowed to sell its cars directly to the public. Instead, they want the same independent dealership network as is the status-quo for cars currently to be kept.

The disappointing decision even came despite the Virginia DMV Hearing Office making a recommendation that Tesla be granted a license. “I further find that the operation of a Tesla owned dealership would be in the public interest” the Hearing Officer wrote, having deemed that “Tesla has presented additional and persuasive evidence that there is no dealer, independent of Tesla, that would be available in the community or trade area” that could sell the Model S and other cars under the franchise model in a way in-keeping with public interest.

That proved unconvincing for Virginia’s DMV Commissioner, however, who overruled the Hearing Officer and rejected the request.

Tesla is currently fighting with legislators in Texas who have said the company cannot operate a direct-to-consumers network of its own. Instead, it must work on a franchise system, with a middleman in-between, something Musk has argued is inefficient and not in the best interest of drivers.

Tesla’s dealership woes continue as Virginia refuses license is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.