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Has Google Shut Down SMS Search?
hypnosec writes "Users in the US are reporting that Google has allegedly shut down its SMS Search service without any official announcement or notification. According to initial reports users are getting a 'SMS search has been shutdown' message. Navigating to the official Google Mobile website and clicking on SMS Search yields nothing but 404 – Page not found error."
Sucks since I don't have a data plan... But an (very short) explanation is here http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/websearch/yKG7BGro7QQ/ntAXQWWKj70J
Why is it that folks still have issues when a "Free" service suddenly is removed? I realize that folks used this service since they didn't have a mobile data plan, but really how is it that Google was making money with this? I mean they couldn't really target you for ads could they?
There's no such thing as a free lunch. Free but no free lunch.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
I get downmodded every time I bring this up...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I don't think that attitude is limited to America.
Yeah, I had a sig once; I got bored of it.
for hacking google, china.
You are forgetting estoppel:
Estoppel in its broadest sense is a legal term referring to a series of legal and equitable doctrines that preclude "a person from denying or asserting anything to the contrary of that which has, in contemplation of law, been established as the truth, either by the acts of judicial or legislative officers, or by his own deed, acts, or representations, either express or implied." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoppel] (emphasis mine).
A common example is a stream on private property that borders a road. If people have come to take water from the stream, even if the landowner povided a pipe on his own land to make it easy (that did not extend to the public property), then after some time, the landowner can not suddenly deny access to the water in that stream, whether by his pipe, or not. If he tried, a court would likely grant a public "easement by estoppel".
The same principle is used in divorce cases to ensure that a soon to be ex-wife received alimony so that she may live "in the manner to which she has become accustomed", even as alimony is granted less and less frequently in recognition of women's ability to independently earn income. (It is still granted in many cases when a wife has never worked, and her husband supported her: she often gets 50% of the community property (to which she contributed nothing financially) AND alimony.)
So, if a company provides a free service, that many have come to rely upon, for some significant time, it may very well be held to continue to provide that service, unless the nature of the free offering was made clear (e.g. reserving the right to discontinue it at any time).
Generally, estoppel applies to either real property easements, or income streams, or other tangible benefit, but I see no reason that it can not be applied to a service.
In this case, the court would weigh the time the service was offered, the reasonable expectations of the public regarding it, and the public harm if it were terminated against the costs of the company to continue to provide it for free.
Be warned, however, that public easements by estoppel, for even an essential thing like water, often only are granted if free access was provided for extended periods of time, say 25 or 50 years. Often this is codified in municipal bylaws, or state, or federal laws.
This is why one should ALWAYS be careful of "being nice": one may unwittingly create an obligation by estoppel to continue to do so.
In Liberty, Rene
It never made official release. It was in beta for ages, no wonder it got pulled. It is reel or cut bait.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Data plans tend to be cheapish these days.
Including international data roaming? And even for someone who stays in the same country all the time, there's a huge gap between $7/mo for dumbphone service on Virgin Mobile and $35/mo for smartphone service on the same carrier. How do you call $336 per year "cheapish"?
What service should I cut to make room in my budget for the $336 per year difference between Virgin Mobile's cheapest plan without data and its cheapest plan with data?
I was with you until the Unicode error...you posting from Windows? Pot, kettle?
I remember sigs. Oh, a simpler time!
data plans cost $10-20 over the base plans for month to month type services
Virgin Mobile quoted me $28 per month for its cheapest voice and data plan per smartphones ($35 per month) compared to its cheapest pay-per-minute voice-only plan for dumbphones ($20 per 90 days). What should I stop buying in order to free up an extra $28 per month in my budget?
This is the same country that had a company give out a bonus turkey to people at Christmas. One year when times were tough they didn't, so employees sued claiming it wasn't a bonus but part of compensation they expected...and won at the Supreme Court.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
In India, China, Europe etc all the incoming calls/tests are fee. The caller pays for them. Looks like Google was providing a toll-free-800-number like service where the outgoing search queries were also free and the search results came back as free texts. Explains why I have not used this service much in usa.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
They don't owe anything to their users using free services, of course. But, it would be polite to at least provide the information saying they've shut it down rather than it disappearing with no notice. It would have been nice to provide advance notice. Required? No. More likely to leave people still feeling OK about enjoying other Google products? Yes.
What competition was there for this service? I'd never heard of it, or anything like it, before. (I don't use SMS, so that's no be surprise.)
I think that when you get to step 2 you are talking about the wrong company. Google often, perhaps usually, doesn't have any competition for their minor projects. Sometimes the competition develops AFTER they show up. If there was prior competition for Picassa, for example, I never heard of it.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Umm.... maybe she raised the kids and took care of the house so her partner could focus on working and, had she not done that, her partner would have been unable to make as much money for the household? If she just sat around eating bon-bons and watching soap operas in a moo-moo, the partner was either okay with that or not smart enough to divorce her before "50% of community property" amounted to much.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
Sounds like a concept that needs to be killed with fire.
Umm.... maybe she raised the kids and took care of the house so her partner could focus on working and, had she not done that, her partner would have been unable to make as much money for the household? If she just sat around eating bon-bons and watching soap operas in a moo-moo, the partner was either okay with that or not smart enough to divorce her before "50% of community property" amounted to much.
...you do understand what financially means? in the scenario she contributed effort, not money.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
yes, of course i understand what "financially" means. the partner's efforts meant the family didn't have to buy the labor on the open market and buying that labor would have cost money. hence, the partner may well have contributed financially in a fairly direct way. by your definition, the "bread winner" also didn't contribute financially if they worked at a salaried/hourly job -- some business (the "bread winner's" employer) did contribute to the family financially, but all the "bread winner" contributed was effort.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
Generally speaking, estoppel may only be used as a "shield" and not as a "sword". You are suggesting here that estoppel be used in order to force google to continue to provide a service, that is, as a sword. This is different that the typical situations in which estoppel is available where someone promises not to do something, though they have the legal right to do so and then go against this promise. It is highly unlikely that estoppel would be available in this context.
I'm not a happy !! I used the sms to find address ,numbers, etc.. This is the worse mistake Google could have made.
In India, it was on 10 th May at around noon. To me personally, it was very useful as a simple way that did nor infringe my company's computer usage policy and also easy on the pocket to keep abreast of cricket scores, train ticket (PNR) status, stocks etc. I got it that morning for some query and my post noon query gave "SMS search has been shutdown. You can continue to search the web at google.com on any device". OK
The 1-800-555-TELL service was moved to a new toll-free number, 888-247-2425, and a non-toll-free number at 330-247-7411. No data plan required.
There is nothing wrong with yr Internet. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling the transmission - NSA
No, I was not smart enough to divorce her before 50% community property amounted to much. Mea culpa.
Not only did she sit around, watching TV, letting the nanny and maid (paid for by me) raise the kids, but she actively trashed the house.
"In the manner to which she has become accustomed" should be replaced by "commensurate with the degree she contributed to the household". I don't buy that a stay at home wife is "worth" half her working husband's earnings: at most she's worth the value of a maid and nanny (which can be significant, though certainly not millions of dollars a year), and certainly not that, if those are required through her doing nothing in the household. And, the same if the gender roles are reversed.
Besides not divorcing her sooner (yes, my bad, but I stuck it out until I had a moral reason), we had a "marriage contract" that stipulated whoever stayed at home was responsible for the household and child-rearing. Unfortunately, where we divorced, "marriage contracts" were not recognized, only "prenuptual agreements" were (which was the EXACT OPPOSITE situation where we were married), and only then regarding property division and not performance agreements (who does what).
But, now, alimony has ended, I have primary residential and sole legal custody of the kids, and she is homeless.
Karma's a bitch.
In Liberty, Rene
Bullshit. My then-wife was so lazy, CPS required me to hire a maid and nanny to care for the kids, because she was neglecting them,
In Liberty, Rene
Actually, the principle of estoppel HAS been used in divorce cases to compel a man to continue to support his now ex-wife in "the manner to which she has become accustomed".
In Liberty, Rene