Wireless and the Law: July 2008 Archives

Chicago attorney Myles McGuire on behave of Nikolay Antonov has filed a class action complaint in Cook County, against Thumbplay Inc. a mobile content provider that claims that the billing methods used have no “checks and safeguards.” to protect consumers’ from unathorized charges on their wireless bills.

“Cell phones are morphing into credit cards, but the same security procedures don’t apply to phone numbers, which are public information,” said Myles McGuire whose firm successfully reach a third-party agreement with AT&T.

The suit implicates players on all levels of the industry: aggregators,  copyright licensors, and affiliate marketers, Internet advertising networks who fail to clearly display the “service’s price, subscription period and cancellation procedures,” the suit states.

A Thumplay PR representative sent Wireless and Mobile News a rebuttal at 11:11 am which we posted at 11:19.

Qualcomm will receive royalties from Nokia for licensing Qualcomm technology for 15 years to settle the patent dispute. An analyst estimated that the settlement could mean $400 million to Qualcomm and save $200 million in legal fees.

The technology Nokia is licensing from Qualcomm, improves phone performance, battery life and keeps phone size small.

New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo has recruited AT&T, and AOL to help stop child pornography. Both companies have agreed to eliminate access to related Newsgroups, a major supplier of these illegal images.  They will also purge their servers of child pornography websites.  Similar agreements were made with Verizon, Sprint, and Time Warner Cable announced by Cuomo last month.

Cuomo also unveiled a new website, www.nystopchildporn.com, dedicated to fighting online child pornography.  The website provides details on which Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have signed agreements with the Attorney General's office to eradicate access to child porn on their servers.  It also provides consumers with information on how to contact ISPs that have failed to make the same commitment to stop child porn. Cuomo urged consumers across the state to check whether their Internet Service Providers have signed the code of conduct and to demand that they do so if they have not.

 Cuomo continued, "I commend AT&T and AOL for working with my office to aggressively purge child pornography from the Internet, and I encourage consumers across New York State and the nation to visit my website www.nystopchildporn.com to make sure their Internet Service Providers are also taking every step they can to eradicate this appalling trade."

Verizon has settled class action suits regarding Early Termination Fees to the tune of $21 million dollars to pay off plaintiffs and attorney's fees.

The settlement comes after the start of a trial last week in California.  Verizon has not admitted to any wrong doing.

News reports say that Verizon spokesman, Jim Gerace said, " "This suit was a distraction. This was a quick way to resolve it."