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Verizon Blames School Text Provider In Dispute Over 'Spam' Fee (arstechnica.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the finger-pointing dept.

Last week, Ars Technica reported that Verizon's new "spam" fee for texts sent from teachers to students might stop working on the network because of a dispute over texting fees that Verizon demanded from Remind, the company that operates the service. Now, it appears that Verizon "has backed down from its original position slightly, and ongoing negotiations could allow the free texting service to continue," reports Ars. From the report: As we reported Monday, the dispute involves Verizon and Remind, which makes a communication service used by teachers and youth sports coaches. Verizon is charging an additional fee, saying the money will be used to fund spam-blocking services. The fee would increase Remind's costs for sending texts to Verizon users from a few hundred thousand dollars to several million dollars per year, Remind said. Remind said it would absorb the cost in order to continue providing the paid version of its service. But most of Remind's 30 million users rely on the free version of the service, and Remind said it could no longer provide free text message notifications over Verizon's network unless the fee is reversed.

Verizon issued an announcement today, titled "App provider Remind threatens to eliminate a free texting service for K-12 education organizations (which will cost it nothing)." The title reflects a new offer Verizon said it made on Tuesday, which would reverse the fee for K-12 users of the free Remind service. "Verizon will not charge Remind fees as long as they don't begin charging K-12 schools, educators, parents and students using its free text message service," Verizon said. "Despite this offer, made Tuesday, Remind has not changed its position that it will stop sending free texts to Verizon customers who use the service regarding school closures, classroom activities and other critical information." The report goes on to note that simply limiting the offer to K-12 users means the fee "would still be charged for preschools, day-care centers, and youth sports coaches who use the free Remind service."

46 comments

  1. Verizon by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Seriously, it's Verizon...did you expect them to be fair or reasonable? Or even honest?

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
    1. Re:Verizon by lactose99 · · Score: 2

      But but but not Verizon's fault, its NEVER Verizon's fault.

      --
      Fully licensed blockchain psychiatrist
    2. Re:Verizon by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      It's all Verizon's fault — poor network performance, global warming, terror attacks around the world, the Trump presidency... all of it.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    3. Re:Verizon by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Seriously, it's Verizon...did you expect them to be fair or reasonable? Or even honest?

      Actually, I did expect Verizon to make a fair offer seeing as the dicks at Remind just bitched in an open forum rather than try to make a deal with Verizon. I also expected that you would not read the article and would instead jump to conclusions to make a tongue-in-cheek post in your hastiness to get first post, like so many other douchebags on /.

      Oddly enough, Verizon lived up to my expectations... as did you, douchebag.

    4. Re:Verizon by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 0

      Verizon lived up to my expectations... as did you, douchebag.

      Hey, get a grip, bud. I don't come down to where you work and knock the dicks out of your mouth, do I?

      --
      Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
    5. Re:Verizon by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of course you don't. Like your name implies, you have plenty of old guy dicks available to suck on and you don't need to come and steal mine.

      Oh, I'm sorry, did you mean that as an insult?

    6. Re:Verizon by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

      Oh, I'm sorry, did you mean that as an insult?

      I'm not surprised you can't tell. It takes an IQ above room temperature.

      --
      Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  2. This is a valid anti-spam measure by Solandri · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I hate Verizon and refuse to get service from them. But one of the anti-spam measures commonly touted is to simply add a per-message fee which is small enough not to bother regular users (who send only a few thousand text messages a month), but big enough to cripple spammers (who send a few million text messages a month).

    Such a fee is effective, but does have consequences for high-volume users. That is by design. This isn't a "Verizon is evil so this is wrong" thing. This is a "do you want to try to reduce or eliminate spamming by making it unprofitable?" thing.

    The fee would increase Remind's costs for sending texts to Verizon users from a few hundred thousand dollars to several million dollars per year, Remind said. Remind said it would absorb the cost in order to continue providing the paid version of its service. But most of Remind's 30 million users rely on the free version of the service, and Remind said it could no longer provide free text message notifications over Verizon's network unless the fee is reversed.

    Several million dollars a year / 30 million users = about 10 cents per user per year.

    Even if you assume "several million" is more than $5 million and divide by Verizon's 35% market share, that works out to less than a dollar per user per year. The fee is not ruinous. Unless you're a spammer.

    1. Re:This is a valid anti-spam measure by Dan+East · · Score: 2

      Maybe it's my carrier (US Cellular), but I get zero spam texts. I never have gotten them. Spam phone calls? Yes. A few a day currently. However I do not get spam texts. Now I don't know if they have preventative measures in place or what, but either no one attempts to send them to me, or they are doing an extremely effective job blocking them. I didn't even realize spam texts were a problem for some.

      --
      Better known as 318230.
    2. Re:This is a valid anti-spam measure by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      I hate Verizon and refuse to get service from them. But one of the anti-spam measures commonly touted is to simply add a per-message fee [wikipedia.org] which is small enough not to bother regular users (who send only a few thousand text messages a month), but big enough to cripple spammers (who send a few million text messages a month).

      True spammers will find a way around the fee, or they will spam using some other mechanism. The only people a fee actually hurts are legitimate businesses that actually need to send out a lot of text messages — particularly if your business is providing a service that does not cost money.

      The way you prevent spam has nothing to do with the checking the quantity of messages and everything to do with checking the first derivative of the number of messages. If you are always sending out a lot of messages, you likely aren't a spammer. If you suddenly go from sending out zero messages to sending out a lot of messages, you likely are.

      For example, gmail sends out an insane number of email messages every day, but it is not a spammer. But someone suddenly going from no emails sent to even .001% of gmail's outbound traffic almost certainly is.

      Real, legitimate growth is organic, and behaves like organic growth. Spam growth is artificial, and suddenly jumps as they acquire a new database of destination addresses/phone numbers.

      There are exceptions to this, but they are very rare, to such a degree that they can likely be readily handled by human intervention on a one-off basis, even for a large outfit like Verizon.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    3. Re:This is a valid anti-spam measure by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

      I get it (and yes, it can be very effective) but they could fine-tune it so that a user gets some reasonable number of texts before charges start to apply. Institutions like schools could get a higher threshold.

      Also, you wrote this:

      small enough not to bother regular users (who send only a few thousand text messages a month)

      Serious question- I know some people do send that many texts a month, but is that amount commonplace? Several thousand a month?

      Damn, I don't know if I've sent 1000 in the last 5 years. I don't communicate with gobs of people, but still...several thousand a month?

      If someone is sending several thousand texts a month, when do they find time to eat and sleep? I'm not judging, it just seems like a massive amount of time to me.

      --
      Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
    4. Re:This is a valid anti-spam measure by jeff4747 · · Score: 1

      Yes, and poor helpless Verizon has no way to differentiate between any individual sender, and using that information to create a whitelist for who should not be subject to that fee.

      ...Oh wait! They can! They just want that several million dollars in sweet sweet cash, and are counting on rubes like you to excuse their behavior.

    5. Re:This is a valid anti-spam measure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I hate Verizon and refuse to get service from them. But one of the anti-spam measures commonly touted is to simply add a per-message fee which is small enough not to bother regular users (who send only a few thousand text messages a month), but big enough to cripple spammers (who send a few million text messages a month).

      Such a fee is effective, but does have consequences for high-volume users. That is by design. This isn't a "Verizon is evil so this is wrong" thing. This is a "do you want to try to reduce or eliminate spamming by making it unprofitable?" thing.

      The fee would increase Remind's costs for sending texts to Verizon users from a few hundred thousand dollars to several million dollars per year, Remind said. Remind said it would absorb the cost in order to continue providing the paid version of its service. But most of Remind's 30 million users rely on the free version of the service, and Remind said it could no longer provide free text message notifications over Verizon's network unless the fee is reversed.

      Several million dollars a year / 30 million users = about 10 cents per user per year.

      Even if you assume "several million" is more than $5 million and divide by Verizon's 35% market share, that works out to less than a dollar per user per year. The fee is not ruinous. Unless you're a spammer.

      I have never even seen a spam SMS text, I always assumed that was because they are already not free to send...

      Will they start taxing long distance calls to fight call spam?

      Seriously, what planet is SMS spam from?

    6. Re:This is a valid anti-spam measure by sjames · · Score: 1

      It is if you're offering a FREE service. That kinda precludes getting that dollar a user a year back.

      Why don't we really kill spam and make emails cost $0.50/message? Then we can kill DDOS by charging $0.25/page for web browsing. We can blast ourselves back to the '70s in no time!

      And, of course, this just happens to net Verizon a few million extra per year. But I'm sure they didn't even think of that!

    7. Re:This is a valid anti-spam measure by Calydor · · Score: 1

      This is a service aimed at school children. It's not that they can't afford ten cents per year, it's that they don't have a credit card to PAY those ten cents with.

      Plus CC fees, of course.

      --
      -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
    8. Re:This is a valid anti-spam measure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The fee is not ruinous. Unless you're a spammer.

      .. Or offering the service for free.

    9. Re:This is a valid anti-spam measure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is an easy solution: if you are a valid high-volume sender, demonstrate that to the provider, and you can get a refund or waiver. There aren't many of them, and indeed the provider would probably want a business relationship.

    10. Re:This is a valid anti-spam measure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are you sure it would work that way? I thought it would only impact the senders of the texts through the Remind service, which would be the school systems, the youth coaches, etc? The children wouldn't normally be sending, they would be the recipients. I have used Remind in the past, and know several people who have. I don't believe any of us have ever used it to it's full potential, but merely as a way to pass on information (one-way), such as a school closing due to a winter storm.

    11. Re:This is a valid anti-spam measure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well lets see here, 1000 texts a month would be around 30 a day. Lets assume you text with 5 people on a daily basis, thats 6 texts to a single person each day. Doesn't sound too unreasonable if you are a rather sociable person.

    12. Re:This is a valid anti-spam measure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I get it (and yes, it can be very effective) but they could fine-tune it so that a user gets some reasonable number of texts before charges start to apply.

      So like the plans we had in the late 90's / early 00's?

      That is not meant as criticism of or opposition to your suggestion. I simply find it funny that after moving from limited texting plans to unlimited texting plans, we're now talking about going back. Which again, "going back" is not meant to imply that one is better/worse than the other.

    13. Re:This is a valid anti-spam measure by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      Serious question- I know some people do send that many texts a month, but is that amount commonplace? Several thousand a month?

      Damn, I don't know if I've sent 1000 in the last 5 years. I don't communicate with gobs of people, but still...several thousand a month?

      If someone is sending several thousand texts a month, when do they find time to eat and sleep? I'm not judging, it just seems like a massive amount of time to me.

      1000 texts a month is, on average, only 33 a day. SEveral thousand will be say, 100 texts a day. Which is not much, given a lot of it is IM-chat. "Hey" "Hi" "You There" "Wanna go for dinner" "where" "Restaurant on Main Street" "which one?" "the one we went to" "Yesterday", "What time" "6PM?" "Fine" "I'm running late" "I'm Here"

      That's 14 average texts, which is just under halfway the daily amount for 1000 texts a month.

  3. Verizon is planning to increase the fee 11x by Proudrooster · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yes, while the FCC is furlough for the government shutdown, Verizon goes wild! We aren't talking about increasing the fee a little, Verizon is going for 700%-1110% fee increase. That takes some moxie, not even my scum bag monopoly cable provider tries for 700%. Keep in mind Remind already paying Verizon and providing the service free to teachers and coaches. Yes this is a huge scumbag move by Verizon and once again it highlights the effect of monopoly like power in big telecommunications companies.

    From REMIND
    ===========
    Why the Verizon fee affects free text messaging on Remind

    To offer our text messaging service free of charge, Remind has always paid for each text that users receive or send. Now, Verizon is charging Remind an additional fee intended for companies that send spam over its network.

    Your Remind messages aren’t spam, but that hasn’t helped resolve the issue with Verizon. The fee will increase our cost of supporting text messaging to at least 11 times our current cost—forcing us to end free Remind text messaging for the more than 7 million students, parents, and educators who have Verizon Wireless as their carrier.

    1. Re:Verizon is planning to increase the fee 11x by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      So to summarize, Remind made a business decision to subsidize the cost of a for-profit service from an upstream provider and provide it for free to their users, hoping to persuade those users to upgrade to paid services. Now that the cost of the for-profit service they are subsidizing is increasing, instead of admitting that their business model is no longer sustainable because they were ridiculously assuming that the cost to provide said service would not increase, Remind is blaming the upstream provider of the for-profit services and doing so in public hoping to make the upstream provider of the for-profit services look like a dick.

      Glad to see we're on the same page.

    2. Re: Verizon is planning to increase the fee 11x by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They should've spent some cash lobbying for protection for their business model.

    3. Re:Verizon is planning to increase the fee 11x by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But of course. This is Slashdot.

      "Verizon bad" predates "Orange man bad" by about 20 years around here.

    4. Re:Verizon is planning to increase the fee 11x by The+New+Guy+2.0 · · Score: 1

      This existed in 1999 a few hundred times over... start with free, then add paid. Turns out the free service was money-losing, and costs went up making the paid service not profitable as expected.

    5. Re:Verizon is planning to increase the fee 11x by Proudrooster · · Score: 3, Informative

      Here is a better summary:

      Congress passed a new resolution H.J. Res. 86.
      Verizon sees this new rule as an opportunity to raise rights in the name of fighting SMS spam.
      Verizon decides to raise rates on companies that are paying industry competitive SMS rates on not doing SMS spamming, since remind is 100% opt-in.

      Remind says, "Hey, we aren't SMS spammers, don't raise our rates 7x-11x to fund a new Verizon department that fights SMS spam."

      Lastly, with this move, Verizon SMS rates will no longer be in the realm of industry competitive SMS rates.

      The same debate we had over Internet slow lanes with the cable companies who own the final mile to the customer.
      Verizon owns the last link to the customer and they are going to be the troll under the bridge demanding outrageous fees to cross over.

      So yes, their business model is based on a free service, but they are still paying for each SMS. They just can't pay Verizon 7x-11x the industry rate.

    6. Re:Verizon is planning to increase the fee 11x by Kjella · · Score: 1

      Of course if they didn't want to be an asshat they could have just set up a service requiring the user to send a text like "opt-in 555-1234" to whitelist a number and "opt-out 555-1234" to unlist a number and offer a text sending service that would throw an error if you tried sending to a number without opt-in. Then Remind could just put on their website that yeah, we did try to message you but unless you do this it costs us money so nuh uh. I mean if you can get explicit opt-in from the user it's per definition not unsolicitated and not spam.

      P.S. for bonus points the same service could have a "no-text/no-call/block" command to block communication from that number in whole or part. Of course spoofing is still a thing, but at least anything not trying to be shady...

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    7. Re:Verizon is planning to increase the fee 11x by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of course if they didn't want to be an asshat they could have just set up a service requiring the user to send a text like "opt-in 555-1234" to whitelist a number and "opt-out 555-1234" to unlist a number and offer a text sending service that would throw an error if you tried sending to a number without opt-in. Then Remind could just put on their website that yeah, we did try to message you but unless you do this it costs us money so nuh uh. I mean if you can get explicit opt-in from the user it's per definition not unsolicitated and not spam.

      Uh, thats how remind works dude. Parents have to sign up with it using the teachers code

  4. Re:WSJ - Trump committed tax fraud. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The WSJ is almost as big a joke as you are, but not quite.

  5. Business Plans... by The+New+Guy+2.0 · · Score: 1

    1. Start free texting service
    2. Try to convert to a paid service
    3. Get bill from Verizon for all of your profits and then some.
    4. ??????
    5. PROFIT!

  6. Re:Who fucking cares? by The+New+Guy+2.0 · · Score: 1

    You're using the consumer rate card... when you make a business out of texting, you pay more.

  7. Re: Who fucking cares? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Apparently slashdot does. Same topic was cover a couple of days ago.

  8. Re:Who fucking cares? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It would be cool if you knew what you were talking about. From the horse's mouth!

    $0.0025/message = $0.025/10 messages = $0.25/100 messages = $2.50/1000 messages

    You can extrapolate from there, but no, it's literally $2.50 to send a thousand fucking messages so I'll say it again: Big fucking deal, shut the fuck up and get over yourself, faggot.

  9. Spam is a larger problem by spinitch · · Score: 1

    The business model is weak. Time to move on.

  10. It's boofing time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    time to bend over and take it in the tookas

  11. Re:Who fucking cares? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's because Verizon execs want nice Fi$$$iKKKKKKal items like big yahts, blow and hookers.

      We are the FiKKKifuckyouyahwehal's bitch

  12. Rule of Acquisition 354 by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

    Verizon is a Ferenghi seeking money. The texts you get you pay for with your phone.

    This is like cable companies glomming onto your Netflix fee through back channels even though they charge you directly for your network use and promise you a level of service.

    --
    (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
  13. Verizon logic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    1. Verizon charges new fee.
    2. Remind, company affected by new fee, complains publicly after trying unsuccessfully to negotiate with Verizon.
    3. Verizon publicly blames Remind for Verizon's new fee.

    Makes sense, right?

  14. You wanted net neutrality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... and now you want Verizon to decide which messages should get delivered. Choose one, you idiot leftist hypocrite.

    1. Re:You wanted net neutrality by jeff4747 · · Score: 1

      If Verizon is going to lobby like hell to kill Net Neutrality, they get everything that comes with not having it. Not just the parts that make them money.

  15. easy fix for teachers and Remind by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Dumb Verizon and switch to Vendor that does not charge a fee. Since this is a new fee that Verizon is imposing and it varied from the original contract you can switch with no fee. If there is a problem many competitors will pay any fee a customer faces for early termination.

    So Teachers.. rise up and smack that bitch Verizon in the face by terminating your contract and switching.

    1. Re:easy fix for teachers and Remind by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not a problem with teachers using Verizon. The issue is Remind sending texts to parents/students who are Verizon customers. Verizon wants paid for Remind sending out large number of texts towards Verizon customers.

      Teachers and Remind don't really have much control over what networks parents and students use...

  16. prescription delivery for cancer patients by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There are prescription drug facilities in the US that send special, high-value prescriptions to cancer patients like me every month. The only way I know it's coming is the tracking number which is sent to me in a text message. They send out at least hundreds of these text messages every day. It isn't spam. But it seems to meet VZ's criteria. Don't be evil.