iPhone App Causes Google To Shut Down SMS Service

An anonymous reader writes "A few days ago, Inner Fence released a paid iPhone app called Infinite SMS, which let iPhone users employ Google's free SMS gateway to send SMS messages without paying their service providers. The resulting surge in traffic on Google's SMS gateway forced Google to block all third-party applications from using the free SMS feature — including Google's own GTalk client."

Re:Well,

[imasu]

How is this abuse, exactly?

Re:TANSTASFL

[iamflimflam1]

So they were in the top 10 paid apps for 11 days. According to here [joelcomm.com] if you are in the top 15 paid apps you'll be selling at least 2836 units a day. According to my maths, after Apple has taken their cut they'll have made about $20K Not bad...

Lot's of iPhones out there

[amiga3D]

This kind of puts the iPhone's market share in perspective doesn't it?

Re:Next target: AOL?

[MichaelSmith]

Google haven't closed the service. They have just blocked third party apps from using it. AOL might just do that if a different client starts using this to send messages.

I know somebody who set up an SMS spamming company in about 2000. He was always on the lookout for ways to send tens of thousands of SMS messages for free.

Re:Well,

[A1rmanCha1rman]

A "Proper Business Model" in your view obviously means one that calculates for society's philistinism, self-centredness and lack of a group ethic.

Re:kenneth

[krunk4ever]

You just mashed together a bunch of unrelated statements and even made up some of your own.

rupesh (article author) stated, "Google's hardly publicized method for sending free text messages has been revoked ..."

Google stated, "SMS chat is still just an experiment in the early testing stages in Gmail Labs."

Nowhere did anyone state they wanted to "test it with limited numbers of users"

Do note that "hardly publicized method" still means a public API, which I would guess is intended for others to use.

What happened here is just that Google wasn't expecting such a huge surge in usage and had no other choice to disable for 3rd party clients for now. If they can figure out a way they can support it, they would most likely re-enable this service for 3rd parties.

Re:Inner Fence's and Google's Official Statement

[HavocXphere]

>>"We acted in good faith" (From Infinite site) That is just pathetic. Google's SMS service was opened up in good faith hoping that no one would abuse it to make money.

Re:Well, Google HAD a business model!

[PopeRatzo]

I hope this AC's insightful comment doesn't get lost in the bloviating. He's absolutely spot-on about how Google sold their free SMS model to the providers.

Re:kenneth

[kylef]

Google does stuff for free when it suits them. If it might get in the way of advertisers or business partners (as is certainly the case here), they back down. Despite the legion of Slashdot fans who don't want to believe otherwise, Google is a business and frequently makes business decisions. Which is fine, as long as people see it for what it is.

What happened here is just that Google wasn't expecting such a huge surge in usage and had no other choice to disable for 3rd party clients for now.

It's a bit ironic that you start your post by blasting someone for reading between the lines, and then you proceed to do the same thing yourself. Unless you work at Google, you have no way to know why this decision was made.

But it's funny that you make it sound like Google is a helpless victim. How much traffic exactly pushed their feeble servers over the capacity limit only 11 days after this software became "popular"? How many iPhone users broke the camel's back?

The reality here is that Google made a policy decision, not a capacity decision. Especially since Google is one of the best in the business at scaling. This message should silence any doubt: "SMS_ERROR_10: Sorry we don't support free SMS messaging through this client. Visit http://gmail.com/sms [gmail.com] for more info."

Developers seem a bit naive

[Ash Vince]

I love their comment that they never would have guess they could write an app to big for google.

Did they really never guess that writing an application that allowed you to perform one of the primary functions for a mobile phone that is usually chargeable would cause problems if it was free. The mobile networks would have started moaning at google immediately and since Google are currently trying to get them to sign up to android they were going to have to cave in.

Re:How is parent insightful when he's wrong?

[SuperAlgae]

The important factor is where the effective value comes from, not a line item bill. As an extreme example, let's say I'm selling a toaster for $5000, and it comes with a free luxury car. If I stop offering the free car, do you think people will still buy the toaster. Stated price is not always a reflection of real value.

The reason that web browsers are different than InfiniteSMS is that there is a strong competitive market of browsers that all use the same internet access. Therefore, browsers must distinguish themselves by some means other than simply having internet access. In the case of InfiniteSMS, I think the competing messaging apps are not using Google's service. When people buy the app, Google's service is the distinguishing factor, not the app itself.

Re:TANSTASFL

[NonUniqueNickname]

Apple always keeps their 30%. The developer puts up 100% of the money for a refund. Simplified math for a refund: Developer pays 30% of the app's price to Apple.
Users have 30 days to ask for a refund from the app store. And you'd think many will ask for a refund when the service goes offline or shortly after. Why not? the app is useless to them.
If everyone who can ask for a refund does, the developers doesn't profit, doesn't break even, the developer loses big.

Re:Alll's Well that ended well.

[horza]

Today's 2000-era generation thinks it's perfectly okay to tap into their neighbor's wireless internet, even though it's costing their neighbor extra money.

It does?

I grew up in the late 80s/early 90s, a period where people were fed up of getting ripped off by telecoms companies. The cost of switching had dropped to fractions of the cost, yet the cost of calls kept getting higher. We were fleeced making international calls whilst the telecoms companies raked in billions. We paid through the nose for Internet access over slow modems. The monopoly deliberately held back cheap broadband in the form of ADSL as they didn't want to cannibalise their rip-off ISDN service. SMS was added as an after-thought to GSM and used to be free for everybody via numerous gateways. I used to have it so people could message my mobile via my web site. Then once the big mobile operators saw a cash cow they blocked the free operators by creating a cartel and charging an inter-operator penalty. The digital revolution is starting to open a few holes in the old monopolies and good thing too. The resentment, much like with the record industry and their restrictive practices, are coming back to bite them.

It's the "you don't have an entitlement" generation, and it's going out to the telecoms companies, the RIAA, Microsoft, large drugs companies, foreign oil powers, and anybody else that things they have a license to print money whilst sitting on their asses and doing very little.

Phillip.

Re:Yes and No

[Khyber]

The USA and Australia are NOT third-world countries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World [wikipedia.org]

There's a little handy picture included.

Re:Well,

[youcantwin]

Let's remember that next time [insert OSS project] failed/was stopped because it didn't have a proper business model behind it.

That said, Google failed providing a decent authentication system to their free service. They should have used API keys and limit the number of calls each one can make if they can't support unlimited calls.
My guess is that's what they're going to do next...