Google Launches SMS Search Service

jSpectre writes "Google's been busy introducing a lot of new things this week. The latest, a SMS search service. SMS a message to 46645 (googl) and find local business listings, product prices, dictionary definitions, and more. Go Google!"

Comments

Re:Free?

[seizer]

Not sure how the charging structure works in the USA, but most GSM networks in the world charge a fixed termination fee for an SMS message entering their network (all UK networks have agreed on 3p, which is why you can't get a better rate (or if you can, it'll be a loss leader).

With high traffic numbers, you can usually arrange a profit sharing deal with the provider of your services, so if Google's smart (and they are) they'll figure out a way to take a cut of the revenue. That's how the UK's "free" ISPs took off - Freeserve and the like simply said "we will generate X million minutes of phone calls a month, who'll give us a cut".

Google SMS privacy policy

[SlyDe]

(Ok, I know, shameless karma whoring....)
http://www.google.com/sms/privacy.html

Information that we collect and how we use it

When you send a message to Google SMS, we log an encrypted version of the incoming phone number, the wireless carrier associated with the number, and the date and time of the transaction. We use this data to analyze the message traffic in order to operate, develop and improve our services. Google will never rent or sell your phone number to any third party, nor will we use your phone number to initiate a call or SMS message to you without your permission. Your wireless carrier and other service providers also collect data about your SMS usage, and their practices are governed by their own privacy policies.

Re:These guys do it too...

[Coming soon!]

...the press piece.

Google's doing all kinds of stuff

[fawlty154]

Google labs http://labs.google.com/ shows all kinds of interesting stuff Google is cooking up.

Re:Not knowing what to say, I sent it 'pizza'

[Khazunga]

You can triangulate automatically, based on signal strength of the various bases you're connected to. Vodafone here does that as a GPRS service of vehicle fleets. The accuracy is at least enough to identify the street you're in, so its definitely better than 5km.