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Verizon Removes Search Choices For BlackBerrys
shrugger writes "I picked up my BlackBerry this morning to do a search and noticed Bing as my default search engine. I thought this was very strange, since I didn't pick this setting. I went to change it back to Google and, to my chagrin, Bing was my only option! Apparently Verizon has pushed an update that removes all search providers except Bing. Thanks a lot Verizon!" The Reg notes: "The move is part of the five-year search and advertising deal Verizon signed with Microsoft in January for a rumored $500m."
Personally I'd try to argue my way up the manager food chain that this change is significant enough that I should be allowed to renegotiate or get out of the contract with no penalties.
No idea how well that would work with verizon, every company is different, but I've done the same in similar situations with other companies/services.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
Yea but from the same artilce:
"It should be said, however, that according to press reports, Google was in talks with Verizon over a similar search deal before the Microsoft pact was finalized"
Sounds like google was working on doing pretty much the same thing. Microsoft just beat them to it. This is about money, not about the quality of the product.
I own an openmoko, which has some hardware limitations, but I like the fact that I control its configuration almost as far as I control the configuration of my laptops and servers.
If you don't want to be treated as a captive audience by your service provider then put your money down on a phone which gives you control.
I know its a cliche, but with Apple et al getting on the app store bandwagon, and google linking phones, the OS and advertising, the old GNU issues around Free software are becoming more real.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Not gonna do it.
I haven't heard anything good about Verizon Wireless that made me want to do business with them in a very long time. They seem to be competing with themselves to see how much bad press they can drum up in the shortest possible time. What a sharp contrast to my personal experience with their DSL service, which has been amazingly hassle-free (no bandwidth caps, no ports filtered, no restrictions on running servers, etc). It's a shame because this one division seems hell-bent on giving a bad name to the entire company. This deal with Microsoft may be for $500 million, but I wonder what that figure would be if you adjusted for ill will and lost sales from potential customers who see this kind of thing and decide to go elsewhere.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
If you need to push your product by paying another company to force your product to be used, I don't think that says very good things about your product.
I've got some friends that work for Microsoft, and a lot of their social media status updates are about Bing!. The way they're phrased, it's obvious that posting those statuses is "not required, but not discouraged". Astroturfing, paid shills, annoying television commercials, removal of choice, worse search results... these are a few of my least favorite Bing!s.
From my experiences with Verizon as an internet provider, they're fantastic -- but all of their services just feel way too overpriced.
They really are. When I signed up for DSL service I just about grilled the sales rep, to the point that he transferred me to one of their techs because he did not know the answers to some of my questions. I asked whether they filter any ports for any reason, and they don't. I asked if they have any kind of bandwidth cap, and they don't. I asked if they would hassle me if I decided to run any servers of any kind on my Linux box, and they won't. I straight up asked them, "let's say that I totally saturate both the upstream and downstream bandwidth 24/7, would you throttle or cap or in any way interfere with this?**" and they said no. And you know what, they were honest and true to their word. Mind you, this is regular residential service, not a business plan.
Friends of mine who have Internet service through cable companies have not been nearly as satisfied. At least in my local area, the cable companies are much more eager to screw with users' traffic. They're also much less reliable in terms of outages, which almost never happen to me and have been promptly fixed the few times they did occur. I think too that the cable ISPs around here filter at least TCP port 25, possibly others. Further, while their potential maximum bandwidth is more than my DSL connection, they rarely (if ever) experience that maximum speed, presumably because of the shared nature of cable service. Anytime I have tested it, my DSL service has always been exactly the bandwidth that Verizon has agreed to provide, no more and no less.
I feel like I am getting my money's worth and I really cannot find anything to complain about. When I read negative story after negative story about Verizon Wireless, it amazes me that their wireless division is even the same company.
**I don't actually saturate my full bandwidth 24/7. That's not really the point. What matters to me is that I can do it if I feel like it without interference. At least in my case, when they say "unlimited" they really mean it.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Shouldn't this fall under changing the contract? You are now locked into using Bing as your search provider, which is a restriction that was not present when you originally signed the contract, which means that it has changed. You should be able to terminate ETF-free, although it'll definitely take some fighting to do so if you're the first.