Slashdot Mirror
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."
Oh we hear you Verizon, apparently you just don't care.
F*ck you Verizon. You know, I used to manage a 500 phone cell contract at the last company I worked for. I actually liked Verizon then. They had great support and offered decent phones (although it still took them a year to get the RAZR, the hot phone at the time.) We had some great regional sales reps too. Warranties were hassle free and we appreciated that. I moved jobs three years ago. It came time to consider switching cell providers and I naively assumed Verizon was the same. Sure, they're rates were still about the same, but everything else has changed with the company. I hate dealing with them now and they're the bane of my existence. I had SEVERAL regional reps outright lie to me this year. I hate them.
----- obSig
No matter how much AT&T sucks, Verizon will always lead the competition in that category.
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
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. Moreover, it is going to make many people simply react negatively to being forced to use Bing. On the other hand, given the massive head start that Google has over Bing, it is understandable that Microsoft would try tactics like this. Presumably if they are still trying this sort of thing in two or three years that would indicate a much more serious problem. Honestly, having tried both Google and Bing I've found them to be close to the same quality. I prefer Google but primary for the interface.
The appropriate way to ink this deal would have been to simply make Bing the default instead of actually removing the competitors. It would have been worth less money to Verizon, but far more in terms of customer loyalty.
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
Verizon doesn't use SIMs. In fact, I'm pretty sure the SIM slot in my Verizon phone is disabled.
Bing, the sound of thousands of Verizon customers finding a new provider...
The bigger problem is the people who are "stuck" with Verizon for the next (up to) 24 months, and not those considering a new plan with Verizon.
Apparently Verizon has pushed an update that removes all search providers except Bing.
. . . more like a "shove."
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Honestly -- did Microsoft learn nothing from the browser war? Its anti-trust lawsuits? Even if this sort of move is not technically illegal, they're sure to gain more enemies than friends in the tech community. I was never keen on the blackberry, but the sliver of interest I had in the product is now gone.
Wow, AT&T with it's lock-in of the iPhone, now Verizon with a lock-in to Bing. Can it be that this is the only way that Microsoft can get people to use Bing?
I tried Bing, gave it a fair shake and ended up back with Google. To have my choices taken away by my phone carrier in a backroom deal between Microsoft and Verizon would get me looking for a new carrier.
Of course, Microsoft has been in this business for a long time so they can give lessons to Verizon.
Tisha Hayes
Honestly how angry can you be if you still have to censor the word fuck? Whats next C*ap and F*rt?
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
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."
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
This demonstrates exactly why the phone network provider has to be decoupled from the cell phone vendor. What is the subtext of this? That the consumers are nothing more than serfs for the phone network providers to buy and sell as they please. That's the point. You have NO choice with Verizon. It's not YOUR phone it's THEIR phone.
Microsoft couldn't pay enough people to use exclusively bing *and* keep their word, so why bother with the common citizen and instead go directly to the phone network? After all, the phone network is the only the thing that matters. Who gives a F*** about you and me and what *we* want? Certainly not verizon with this maneuver. The worst part? I don't think it has even occurred to the management at verizon how deeply offensive this maneuver is. To FORCIBLY lock people into 1 choice of search engine?!?! WTF? What are they smoking?!?!
I think it's time that Congress and the President (who's a blackberry customer) is informed of what exactly verizon thinks of their freedom of choice. Talk about Dumb Ass Maneuver!
Apple and AT&T have been only allowing one set of search providers, stores, Web browsers, and API. And people flock to their products.
Someone forces their devices to do the same thing, people scream bloody murder.
Why? Because people *had* the choice before, and it was taken away from them. With Apple, you know you will be using Safari or nothing, iTMS or nothing, Apple App store or nothing, and AT&T (in the US) or nothing. The deal with this device is that people didn't sign up knowing that their choices of search providers would be taken away.
Unfortunately, here's yet another reason to MOVE MY PHONES AWAY FROM VERIZON. Recently, we found out that Verizon was charging for data (1mb of data transfer) when I accidentally hit the "Get it now" key that is hard-coded, pre-programmed, into my phone - without any labeling and without any option to repurpose the keystroke.
This seems to come on top of everything else as yet another reason to choose another vendor - Google, hopefully! - and not Verizon.
It would be nice for Verizon and Sprint to use R-UIM cards. From what I know, Chinese CDMA providers use these on a widespread basis. It saves them money over time because a user can upgrade devices without needing to have the cellular provider need to enter the device's IMEI number at their end.
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
After reading several Blackberry message board posts from Verizon users that got Binged, I kept checking for it every time I did a reboot or battery pull. After one reboot, I noticed a new icon with the Bing logo. I clicked it. It said it wanted to change my default and had the "I Agree" and "I Disagree" choices. I clicked "I Disagree" and then deleted the Bing icon. I'm a Verizon Blackberry user with Google as my default search. Bing doesn't even appear on the menu.
I have a BlackBerry Storm through Verizon, and the other day I noticed the Bing icon show up on my screen, which I thought was strange, but seeing as how I'm sort of generally disenchanted with Google these days, I didn't really care. However, if you open up the actual browser app instead of clicking the new icon, then you can still search via Google by default in there without any disruption.
Verizon didn't remove search choice, and they aren't forcing Bing, they just stuck an extra icon on the phone. Delete it and move on. Seriously.
No, it wouldn't be nice "for them", it would be nice for you because it would make it easy for you to switch phones and providers as you like. And that's why they don't do it.
... Verizon sells its customers!
There was probably a funnier way to say that, but I think the point is made. Here we have this situation that appears again and again. Businesses who collect our money in giant leaf-piles of money somehow feel it's not enough and end up selling their customers... their trust, their personal data and personality information and habits and preferences... it sickens me but it stopped surprising me long ago.
From now on, whenever Microsoft talks of providing choice, remember this deal in which Verizon appears to have removed any choice of search from Verizon's users.
Fixed that for you.
Verizon is definitely not a victim in this.
Despite the mountain of cash waved in their face, Verizon could have said no.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
I dumped Verizon over 5 years ago when they partnered with M$ for "myvzw". One day I went to log into the portal (which worked fine from a mobile phone so it didn't require too many html capabilities) and it said I was on an incompatible browser and needed to upgrade. The problem was that I was on a SPARC. I'd been using a SPARC with Netscape for years with no trouble and then suddenly they said I needed exploder. AT&T has better phones anyway. I recently dumped Netflix because they require Silverlight to view movies on-line. It's just a coincidence that the CEO of Netflix sits on the M$ board of directors... People who say Microsoft has changed its ways and is no longer anti-competitive just aren't looking in the right places.
If it was true capitalism there would be competition because there wouldn't be government regulations/payouts that helped Verizon and MS in the first place. If it wasn't for the government intentionally creating monopolies with the first AT&T then breaking up the artificial monopoly, we wouldn't have had Verizion in the first place.
Your conjecture is based on the premise that a monopoly wouldn't have formed anyways.
The only problem with that theory is that AT&T/Bell was already a monopoly by the time the Gov't got around to regulating them as one (1934).
Unregulated markets tend towards consolidation, cartels & oligopolies.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
No, it's not capitalism but don't go dragging the big bad government scarecrow in here.
The thing about capitalism is it leads - inherently - to exactly the sort of situation you seem to think requires a government to create. When the first company goes around laying phone lines, or cable lines, or train tracks, or anything requiring a large initial investment in infrastructure, you usually get something known as a "natural monopoly". When Ma Bell put in their phone lines, it seems reasonable to think that another company could just put in a duplicate set of phone lines - obviously, AT&T has no incentive to share theirs. Unfortunately, this never happens. While you're trying to pay off your entirely redundant infrastructure, the incumbent will just undercut you.
Then, with networks connecting people, you have to worry about the network effect. If everybody (or almost everybody) uses AT&T, and they won't allow your new startup to connect to their network - well, you're screwed before you begin.
The situation is the same with cellphone market. The tendency is for one company to do it all.
Food for thought: Without government intervention, you'd still have Ma Bell but you wouldn't be able to use your own phone, or a modem. There wouldn't be any other cell companies - it'd all be Bell, because they would just prevent interconnection. Want a cellphone, and want to talk to people on landlines? Gotta be Bell.
Please, if you're going to spout off about the evils of government, at least be right. There's plenty of things to be annoyed at the government about, but regulation of natural monopolies is not one of them (unless, of course, you run a natural monopoly...)
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
Actually, the iPhone lets you change your search provider in the configuration settings.
He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
Unfortunately, they aren't going to lose much in the way of sales. As someone else pointed out a few replies back, their network is probably the best in the US right now...
I happily use TMo, who has coverage (or at least roaming I dont seem to pay for) in every area I need them.
If one looks at their coverage map here:
Verizon
And enters Ticonderoga, NY in the City/State field, one will notice that they have... ummm... something. I dont know what. There is no key on their map that indicates what blue with white lines through it means. The same goes for Rt9N and the outskirts of Port Henry.
Well, I know what blue with white lines means (even though there is a Verizon store there). It means NO coverage... even though one would suspect from the map that it means 3G.
As a matter of fact, if you zoom out, it shows the coverage as blue - which is on their map key.
Gee, that's an outright lie. I wonder how many other areas are similarly mis-marked. Ticonderoga and Port Henry dont have 3G, EDGE, or even just basic phone coverage from Verizon. We (the Star Trek Phase 2 Team) has even made some "funny" videos about it that are on YouTube (well, "we" is our sound engineer Ralph Miller mostly, with a couple of us participating in some of them).
When we called them asking if or when they'd have it (since it is marked as they do on their map), they told us they dont, wont and never plan on as there is no demand for coverage up there. Four years later, and calls as recently as this past fall, and their maps are still incorrect.
Regardless, I am sure Verizon has better coverage in many areas than TMo, but for me, TMo's coverage is all I need for where I travel, and their customer service (regardless of how it may or may not be able to be improved) is light years above Verizon's - including helping me with phone/connectivity issues with "unapproved" and "untested" phones - as well as with my "tested/approved" G1 that I bought second hand on eBay.
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
Actually, the iPhone lets you change your search provider in the configuration settings.
Yeah, I can set the check mark next to either Google or Yahoo. Now there's real "Freedom of Choice."
John
It's good enough for a presidential election...
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.