iPhone App Causes Google To Shut Down SMS Service 420
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."
Well, (Score:5, Insightful)
that's what you get for abusing a free service. Happy now?
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Alll's Well that ended well. (Score:2)
You had it. Now you don't. Does the definition of abuse really matter since it will not change people's behavior to the point there isn't a repeat.
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Re:Alll's Well that ended well. (Score:4, Insightful)
But... but... but... I want it my free stuff!!!
Wah.
Re:Alll's Well that ended well. (Score:4, Informative)
The BBC calls them narcissists: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7943906.stm [bbc.co.uk]
Yes, a generation of self centred jerks who've never been told they're wrong; I look forward to the bright new future...
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Yes and No (Score:2)
Not that I disagree with your overall point, but how does using your neighbors wireless cost them extra money? They pay a monthly fee for these broadband services, not per KB...
Well, what you're saying is true, if the neighbour has an essentially uncapped service, like services across much of the Developed World (Finland, Sweden, Korea, Japan, etc.). However, caps on monthly throughput seem to be widespread in parts of the Third World (USA & Australia, anyway), with surcharges for anything over the cap. In some service plans which afflicted slashdotters have bewailed, the caps are quite stingy and the surcharges are astonishingly high.
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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.
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Re:Yes and No (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know how you got modded insightful - if you truly believe that our economy is third world, or that our health is third world, or that our education is third world, you are delusional.
While there are plenty wrong with the US economy, health care, education, etc etc... To claim that we are in a third world state (or even close to it) is an insult to people who actually live in third-world countries.
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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.
What could you possibly mean by that?
Are we talking the initial USD$70 cost for the wireless router? Is there some sort of "I have a wireless Internet connection and therefore pay a larger Internet bill" fee that I don't know about?
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Are we talking the initial USD$70 cost for the wireless router? Is there some sort of "I have a wireless Internet connection and therefore pay a larger Internet bill" fee that I don't know about?
Depends on the terms-of-service. For people who pay for every Gb over a specific value or who get reduced throughput after they max out their allocation, having someone freeloading on their wireless is indeed costing them either money or quality of service.
Now you can argue that they should damn well learn to secure their wireless adapter. But I dare say you'd be upset if your neighbour jumped your fence and plugged an extension cable into your outdoor outlet. Why didn't you padlock it up?!
Cheers,
Toby
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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. Or google's SMS, even though it costs google thousands of dollars to support that overload.
While I don't disagree with your overall point there are some things I would like to point out. Hopping onto an unsecured network is basically taking advantage of a free resource. This is basically like saying that while your playing your boombox, no one else should be able to listen. But you are too lazy to plug in your headphones. If the person the network belongs to won't take the 3 minutes to turn on wireless security then they shouldn't have the right to bitch when someone hops onto their network.
Re:Alll's Well that ended well. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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So by using a free web browser instead of paying for a paid web browser, am I abusing the free web browser, the paid web browser, or both, or the internet at large?
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Free and "ad-supported" are two different things. My wild guess is that GP was actually talking about free as in beer browsers. Where does the money change hands with eg. Firefox?
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Opensource is as good as my own property, for the taking, because I can do ANYTHING with it.
Clearly, you are quite ignorant of Open Source, as defined by the OSI.
Free software is something that I am permitted to use AS LONG AS I use it in a way approved of by the authors/owners.
Actually, that is true of most Open Source as well. It's also far from the FSF's definition of "free software".
There isn't a lot of software which could be classified "open source", but not "free software", by your definition. I could only mention sqlite, and DJB's stuff (qmail, djbdns, etc) -- these are public domain.
No, the difference is actually quite an obvious one: Open Source only requires that the source code be available. Before D
Re:Well, (Score:4, Insightful)
Charging for a service another entity subsidizes without their approval.
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I don't think they charged for a service that Google provided. They were charging for a piece of software to access the service. It's not like they were taking a fee per SMS.
How is parent insightful when he's wrong? (Score:5, Insightful)
The people who sold this app were not "charging" anyone for Google's service. Would you say that someone who developed and sold a killer browser for iPhone was "charging" people to use the Web?
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Re:How is parent insightful when he's wrong? (Score:4, Informative)
Ask yourself this. Of all the apps people could buy, why would they buy this one? Does its competitive advantage come from the excellence of the app itself or from its use of Google's service?
Does this constitute "abuse"? I'm not sure that it does, and I think even Google has not claimed such. But it is overuse, even if unintentional, and it is a form of "charging".
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No. You original comment is still wrong:
>>>>>Charging for a service another entity subsidizes without their approval.
Iphone == some $cost
Addon SMS application == some $cost
Google SMS service == free.
As this line-item "bill" shows, the service was free. You bought the hardware, and you bought the add-on software, but you did not pay for the SMS service. The previous poster was correct when he compared it to a web browser. You might pay $20 to Microsoft for a browser, but not for the intern
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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 distin
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Does Apple have some way to get refunds from the iPhone store?
What happens if you do a chargeback, do they ban you/your phone like PayPal sometimes do?
Re:Well, (Score:5, Insightful)
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that depends on what the definition of "is" is.
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Yeah, but if you bring tupperware to the buffet, you're cheating.
Re:Well, (Score:5, Insightful)
It's never going to be possible to charge people a flat fee for all-you-can-use X without the bulk of the consumers overpaying for their moderate usage of X to subsidise the few who exploit the service. This holds for values of X such as bandwidth, pasta, text messaging, icecream, whatever.
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>>>If they tell us we're paying for unlimited, and we don't get unlimited,
The fine print clearly stated unlimited TIME. And that's what you get. You can stay connected to the net all day long, as opposed to some other providers like AOL Circa 1995 which charged $1 an hour, or Netzero which currently limits users to 10 hours per session. The fact that you failed to read the fine print or contract is your OWN dumb fault. It clearly stated unlimited TIME, not bytes.
Oh and I agree with the European
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If you knew there's a good chance that you'ld be assumed to be the one at fault, lose your license, and probably be thrown in jail until they figured out you didn't steal the Escalade to begin with if you were involved in an accident, would you waste money on insurance ?
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True but insurance covers this scenario. SO yes, I'd 'waste' my money on insurance - because when they did figure out that I hadn't stolen the vehicle and I got to have my day in court - I'd sue everyone involved and make out like a bandit.
In fact getting insurance in that scenario is the key to a huge pay day.. ie: stickin it to the man. Without insurance I'm just another statistic and a patsy as well (what better "proof" is there that someone is responsible for an accident than their lack of insurance - i
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Isn't that the entire reason people get insurance to begin with ?
What kind of idiot would spend money on something they never have any intention of needing ?
Re:Well, (Score:5, Insightful)
that's what you get for abusing a free service. Happy now?
No. That's what you get for offering a service without a proper business model behind it.
Re:Well, (Score:5, Insightful)
that's what you get for abusing a free service. Happy now?
No. That's what you get for offering a service without a proper business model behind it.
Hmmm, yes let's all remember that the next time OSS is discussed.
Re:Well, (Score:5, Insightful)
OSS stands for Open Source Software, not services. Why would you want to remember Google shutting down a free service when discussing open/free software?
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I'm assuming the GP was implying that the business model for most OSS projects is broken, as they spend time working yet give their results for free.
Re:Well, Google HAD a business model! (Score:5, Insightful)
SMS is very profitable to service providers.
E.g. when developing SMS games around 2001, the raito of sent/received messages could go up to 4-5 sent by the game server / 1 sent by the user, and the provider would still buy the game.
Google's model was: enable GTalk and other programs to send SMS-es. The SMS-es are delivered to phones.
Now Google could allocate free sending quota from service providers telling them that these messages will be answered, and service providers can get their profit from the ANSWER SMS-es.
Now this where this iPhone program is dangerous to Google.
It cuts the single source of revenue from the providers: the response SMS could be also throught Google...
Just my 2 cents...
Re:Well, Google HAD a business model! (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Another bussiness model is still possible (Score:2)
There is however a flip side to this business model that is still viable.
Basically google decouples the choice of sms provider from the cell phone service provider then you can have price competition.
This ought to happen because providing SMS is almost free to the cell services. Not only are message minimal number of bits to send, but they usually piggy back those bits on unused parts of the the handshaking signals they would send anyway. So they don't even consume cell bandwidth, just some trivial comlex
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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:Well, (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well, (Score:5, Funny)
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remember that a lot of people are developing iPhone apps now.
I'd complain if it were some large company that based their business model on this, but chances are it's just some guy or small company that figured out a cute, easy trick and tried to charge for it rather than give it away for free.
I'm not condoning it, just pointing out that as the number of people grows, morals and consideration always go out the window unless forced.
That means a per-use charge or limit (Score:2)
The only way you keep people from going crazy over a free service is to put in a per-use charge or some kind of hardcoded limit. The former is annoying with commercial cell phone providers and their text message charges, and the latter is really annoying when your ISP flags your account for sending that funny link to 25 friends instead of the 24 you usually email(*).
* - I now have Mailman set up for this purpose, as it's the legal and ethical thing to do. But the point stands.
Re:Well, (Score:4, Informative)
Ive been sending sms messages to sprint users for free for years now. Just add @messaging.sprintpcs.com to then end of their phone number and send it as an email.
Im sure most other providers do something similar.
Re:Well, (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Well, (Score:5, Insightful)
Problem is this is AT&T cellular. they charge for every outgoing and INCOMING sms message. So honestly they are not losing any money.
This is the problem with SMS messages. they are overpriced drastically so people are looking for ways to subvert them.
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This is Text Messages were talking about here.
Providing a free SMS service and then blocking outside access is like supergluing your asshole shut the day after you bent over the pick up the soap in prison.
Abuse? (Score:2, Flamebait)
So its abuse if you actually use what is offered?
Odd way of thinking.
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Yes, you make sense, but i happen to disagree.
If its free, its there to be used.
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Some of us don't believe in restriction and TOS
If the service is there, Ill use it as i please. If they don't like it, then they can close it and and charge a subscription ( and not have me as a customer ).
While you may not agree with my attitude ( which is your right ), i'm tired of bending over for companies and really don't give a damn what they like or don't like anymore. Screw em.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well, (Score:5, Insightful)
Not just people, criminal organizations. SMS spam is already a problem, and if the same people sending the same unwanted junk mail manage to get ahold of a free SMS service, then they have the ability to not just hit millions of phones, but attack people they don't like with big phone bills. For example (obligatory car mention), sending someone 30,000 text messages likely will make most people's monthly phone bills cost more than the MSRP of a decent vehicle.
In some ways, SMS spam is worse than E-mail spam. Unless the recipiant has unlimited text messaging, they pay up to a buck just to read about someone's new pharmacy.
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Most people in the US do.
kenneth (Score:2)
Re:kenneth (Score:4, Insightful)
That's not what TFA says (or the part that I read at least). It says, "Our experimental feature that we didn't widely publicize because we wanted to test it with limited numbers of users suddenly got slammed with traffic and we didn't feel like supporting it". That's a bit different than what you are implying.
Re:kenneth (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Right, so it's "in the early testing stages" (i.e. in testing) and not widely publicized in order to keep the number of users down (limited number of users), and when suddenly a lot of people started using it they weren't able to support it so shut off access.
I can sort of see where you're coming from but it seems a very fine distinction to be making with little or no reason to make it. Is there some kind of pedantry festival going on that I wasn't informed about?
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I believe you read my post, but didn't understand I was trying to say.
The "hardly publicized" part is from the author of the article, not from Google. What does it even mean to be a hardly publicized method/API? If it's documented and on the web, it's publicized. Does Google have to spam it on their homepage to make it not "hardly publicized"?
If you remove the "hardly publicized" portion (since Google never stated that), calling it an experiment/early testing stage does NOT imply it wants to keep the number
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I don't believe you understand how to put 2 + 2 together.
If a business actually wants a large number of beta testers, perhaps they would advertise in some fashion?
It is well within the bounds of logical deduction to conclude Google did not want large numbers of beta testers based on their behaviour.
What does it even mean to be a hardly publicized method/API? If it's documented and on the web, it's publicized. Does Google have to spam it on their homepage to make it not "hardly publicized"?
Well, perhaps you're being thick on purpose. I would expect that if google had wanted to publicize this we might have seen a something like what they did with gmail, buzz generating, invites, etc. So "hardly pu
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What if one of the 2 is not true? Hardly publicized?
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22google+sms%22&btnG=Search [google.com]
http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=%22google+sms%22&btnG=Search+Archives&ned=us&hl=en [google.com]
Re:kenneth (Score:4, Interesting)
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."
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That's because Google did in fact state:
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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"
Not explicitly, no. I just implied it from the exact things you highlighted in bold. When I see "hardly publicized", "experiment" and "early testing stages" to describe something, I don't think it's unreasonable to infer, "test it with limited numbers of users". Regardless, I wasn't aiming for an exact summary of the TFA but a rough rebuttal as to why the GP was nonsense.
TANSTASFL (Score:3, Funny)
Re:TANSTASFL (Score:5, Funny)
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There Ain't No Such Thing As SMS From... what? Latvia?
..A Free Lunch.
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Re:TANSTASFL (Score:5, Interesting)
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Assuming they aren't forced to give refunds for making an app that only worked for a few days. If people complain, I'm sure apple won't look favorably on that.
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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.
Was this useful? (Score:2)
I don't recall the exact limits but each IP has a limit of sending around 20 messages per 24h, and each phone has a limit of receiving around 20 messages per 24h.
Lot's of iPhones out there (Score:3, Interesting)
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Inner Fence's and Google's Official Statement (Score:5, Informative)
Inner Fence's Official Statement [innerfence.com]
Google will soon block Infinite SMS and all other non-Google software from sending free text messages.
For now, Infinite SMS will continue to work, but when the block goes into effect, you'll start getting an error every time you try to send a text message.
If you have comments for Google, you can visit their Text Messaging Google Group [google.com].
Google has claimed no grievance with Infinite SMS other than its success. Their given reason for the block isn't abuse or wrongdoing; it's that we brought too many users (and thus too much cost) to an experimental service.
We acted in good faith, accessing a feature publicly announced [blogspot.com] by Google over open protocols [google.com] they made available. Other non-Google apps have been able to access the SMS feature since its launch. To us, this was no different from accessing Gmail's near limitless storage over the open IMAP protocol. We never could have guessed that the two of us would write an app too big for Google.
Our first warning was an unexpected call from Google on Monday, 9 March 2009, indicating that the service might be blocked as soon as the very next day.
We asked them to reconsider or at least give us more time to change our program or migrate our users. We scheduled a call for the next morning to hear Google's final time line.
We immediately removed Infinite SMS from sale, since we could not in good conscience continue to sell a product whose lifetime was so likely to be cut short.
This morning, Tuesday, 10 March 2009, our email is overflowing with questions about why Infinite SMS is not available in the app store. We've decided we need to get real information out there for people, despite not having the complete picture yet. We will update this page when we hear from Google again.
We hope that Infinite SMS users will see this announcement and have some warning before they can no longer use our app for messaging.
Apple does not give app developers any way to perform refunds. Hopefully, at 99ï people will feel like our app paid for itself after only a few messages.
Google's free SMS feature isn't entirely gone. They've only blocked non-Google apps like Infinite SMS. You can still send free text messages through the Gmail web interface (but it doesn't seem like it works in Mobile Safari). The instructions are in their original SMS chat announcement [blogspot.com].
Google's Official Statement
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That is just pathetic. Google's SMS service was opened up in good faith hoping that no one would abuse it to make money.
Do you hate vendors like Red Hat and Novell who took an "opened up" piece of software and made money off of it? To say they abused the service is patently false. There's an open API so people can write third party clients for it, how is it abusive to write a third party client for it???
Though it seems to be their modus operandi over there, I would blame Google for exposing an API for a function they arn't ready to support. In a way its a problem caused by Googles versioning system. The API may have been a t
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Perhaps you should have tried a car analogy because yours is broken.
WE WANT OUR FREE SERVICE BACK!! (Score:2, Informative)
Ohh this is funny, iPhony customers are already bitching on Googe groups http://groups.google.com/group/gmail-labs-help-text-messaging/topics [google.com]
Someone even created an "Online Petition" http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/googlesms/ [ipetitions.com]
We wanz ourz free stuff back!!
lol
Re:WE WANT OUR FREE SERVICE BACK!! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Erk, paying for a free service (Score:3, Funny)
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That's exactly wrong. Free software is designed so that everybody profits.
Developers seem a bit naive (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Shame, Shame (Score:5, Insightful)
Inner Fence *assumed* they would continue to receive a service for which they had no contract and paid no fees. Further, on top of that unsupported and inequitable assumption, they *sold* a product in which they extended *assurances* of continued service.
Inner Fence now points their customers to Google as being the party responsible for the loss of service. But it seems clear that Inner Fence had no basis for assuring delivery of their service to their customers. They simply took the money, left Google holding the bag, and now dodge their full responsibility.
Hey Inner Fence...do your customers look like they have the letters S-T-U-P-I-D painted on their foreheads?
I feel sorry for the Google group members (Score:5, Insightful)
Inner Fence's attempt to deflect criticism by redirecting complaints to http://groups.google.com/group/gmail-labs-help-text-messaging/topics [google.com] is so unfair to the honest service users who were already there. People who really need, or offer information or help are being buried in an avalanche of whiny tripe.
So Inner Fence has punished another group of people, this time innocent.
Re:Next target: AOL? (Score:5, Interesting)
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:Next target: AOL? (Score:5, Funny)
Have you remembered to give him that special kind of "thank you" that we all know he deserves?
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Um, yes, and they provide ad-free IMAP and POP services. They only cost bandwidth, but they will lure people (such as me) to their ad based web-interfaces, if only to make changes and/or to click on the update button for the external POP interface. Besides that they weaken competition such as hotmail, meaning that M$ will get even less money from the ads.