Google Chrome Will Soon Warn Users About Web Pages With Unclear Mobile Billing Services (venturebeat.com) 40
Google is introducing a small but important update to its Chrome browser, one designed to prevent consumers from being swindled by underhanded or unclear mobile subscription services. From a report: Some web pages invite visitors to input their mobile phone number in order to subscribe to some kind of service, such as a mobile game, but it's not always clear how much they will be charged or even if that they are being charged at all. This is enabled by a service known as carrier billing, something that allows users to bypass more laborious subscription methods by having a fee charged directly to their mobile phone bill. [...] Starting from December 2018 with the launch of Chrome 71, Google's browser on mobile and desktop, as well as in Android WebView, will display a warning if it detects that there is insufficient mobile subscription information available to the user.
Dang! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
I'm all for security, but this is getting almost comically fine grained.
Phone companies collaborating with sleazy online marketers to add charges to their customers' phone bills without their explicit consent, and the solution is to get sporadic and intrusive warnings about impending transactions from an advertising company.
What is comical about that?
Re: (Score:3)
What's comical is that we're paying to have powerful computers on our desk and in our pockets but that power is being wasted on a war that's been going on between users and marketing departments for over a decade now.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm all for security, but this is getting almost comically fine grained.
Phone companies collaborating with sleazy online marketers to add charges to their customers' phone bills without their explicit consent, and the solution is to get sporadic and intrusive warnings about impending transactions from an advertising company.
What is comical about that?
That someone is building defenses against it into a browser?
Defense that "detects that there is insufficient mobile subscription information available to the user"?
Sure, anything could be useful, but it's not as though Chrome tries to detect if the web page gives me insufficient information before I enter a credit card, for example.
Feature request (Score:1)
When launching Chrome, it should automatically uninstall itself to better protect the users.
How about ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm with Google on this. But I suspect that their motive might be to drive these web services to their own billing platform.
Re: (Score:2)
Call and enter your credit card number.
1. Not everyone has a credit card.
2. Credit cards are LESS secure than DCB (direct carrier billing).
Your CC #, exp date, and CVV are all printed on your card, and you give that information to anyone you transact with. They can then use the same information for fraudulent purchases.
With DCB, you enter your phone number, and then you get a confirmation on your phone, and are then prompted for a PIN.
DCB is 2 factor: Something you have (the SIM card in your phone) and something you know (the PIN).
CC is 0 fa
Re: (Score:3)
1. Not everyone has a credit card.
Cash cards are a thing. Just line up at the local speedy mart with the other homeless people and you are good to go.
2. Credit cards are LESS secure than DCB (direct carrier billing).
Credit cards are VERY secure. I have a federally mandated right to dispute charges. Cash (debit) cards, less so. But there are regulations covering these as well. I am comfortable with them.
Re: (Score:2)
1. Not everyone has a credit card.
Cash cards are a thing. Just line up at the local speedy mart with the other homeless people and you are good to go.
DCB requires nothing more than the billing method you're already using. For whatever the service is, they have no billing data other than the info they already have (the phone number).
2. Credit cards are LESS secure than DCB (direct carrier billing).
Credit cards are VERY secure. I have a federally mandated right to dispute charges. Cash (debit) cards, less so. But there are regulations covering these as well. I am comfortable with them.
The only thing more secure than payment method X is payment method N/A. And if you're being super paranoid, you don't have to head into your local speedy mart, use a throw-away account, whatever. Deal directly with the phone company. This is, after all, why services like Paypal remain popular -- I don't have to provide more bi
Re: (Score:2)
Deal directly with the phone company.
The idea is to cut the phone company out of the billing loop. Since they suffer no consequences for the fraud that they enable.
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I was going to say. Anybody who has no credit or debit card also does not have a phone that will work with carrier billing, since they probably have some Tracfone or Boost Mobile prepaid shit. Carrier billing is a bad solution to a non-existent problem.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
"Hello sir. Can you hear me?"
They have you saying 'Yes' and now they can scam you for anything. This is a major profit center for the phone companies.
Re: (Score:1)
So... GoogleCoins?
Mobile Billing Services aka premium rate text are (Score:2)
Mobile Billing Services aka premium rate text are not web based.
cram bam thankyou m'am (Score:1)
Google overboard for security (Score:1)
The Google Chrome browser in my Android phone now prevents me from using any public WiFi that requires a login screen, as in an airport or a hotel. This has been profoundly irritating. I know that these hotspots are not safe and am willing to take responsibility for my own data. Having Google slamming the door on me in these situations makes me want to abandon them entirely, but it's like hating the government. There really is no alternative.
Re: (Score:2)
Chrome has been doing that on my laptop for a long time.
iOS and Safari are alternatives. At least they recognize the the login screen and handle it well.
Could be worse (Score:4, Informative)
Question (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Because they get a cut. And the scummier the company, the larger the cut. Heck, it can be huge, like 90% of what you paid goes to the carrier.
And for that, they don't have to
Simple solution in case you get such billing (Score:1)
but havn't signed up willingly: call your provider and tell them to remove the item from the bill - in case they refuse press charges at your local police department (or federal institution, should your provider work across borders) as your provider, the moment he refused to not process a fraudulent transaction from which he profits, crossed the line from being an innocent third party to being an active complicit in a crime.
I wonder (Score:2)
I wonder if this means that any subscriptions that does not go through the google play store will be suspected and a warning will be given?