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Verizon To Charge Content Providers $.03 Per SMS

Posted by timothy on from the but-there's-no-penny-slot dept.

An anonymous reader writes "It appears that Verizon is going to start double-dipping by charging both consumers AND content providers for SMS text messages. Verizon has informed content partners that it will levy a $.03 charge for messages sent to customers, effective November 1. From RCRWireless: 'Countless companies could be affected by the new fee, from players in the booming SMS-search space (4INFO, Google Inc. and ChaCha) to media companies (CNN, ESPN and local outlets) to mobile-couponing startups (Cellfire) to banks and other institutions that use mobile as an extension of customer services.'"

2 of 260 comments (clear)

  1. Post Office Tax by spikenerd · · Score: 5, Interesting

    In the 90's there was an email circulating around claiming that the US Post Office was going to charge a fifteen cent tax on every email sent. I laughed myself silly about people that were actually stupid enough to believe it. If it ever happened, I was sure we could just encode emails so they wouldn't recognize them. Now, that I see people are actually stupid enough to *PAY* fifteen cents to send a message over the same lines on which they speak for free, it's not quite so funny anymore.

  2. cancel your verizon subscription today by blzb · · Score: 5, Interesting

    so now verizon is charging other people money to *call you*. aren't you alrady paying verizon to have a phone number just so people can call you and send you messages.

    you would have to be a real sucker to let verizon charge your friends and associates money to communicate with you, on top of what they are already paying *their* phone company to send the message in the first place.