Best Gadgets World

In Japan and Korea, where mobile technology and culture is well ahead of the rest of the world, mobile users are accustomed to receiving advertising, including SMS ads, on their cell phones. It’s a give and take, as users also receive mobile coupons on their phones, with bar codes that can be directly scanned from their screens. Here in the U.S., it still seems like a strange concept to allow advertisers this kind of access and to use our cell phones to directly transact business. But someday, inevitably, we will - most of us - accept advertising messages on our mobile screens, and pay for merchandise with our cell phones, as part of the daily routine of life, just like we all use ATM cards today.

by Paul Miller, posted Apr 10th 2008 at 11:52AM
Hey, we hate lawsuits just as much as the next guy, but we’re finding it hard to fault Verizon for this one. Verizon and Time Warner Cable arrived in court on Wednesday to settle a tiff over some ads that Verizon claims offer up misleading info about Verizon’s FiOS service. Listed among the complaints include supposed false implications by TWC that FiOS requires a satellite dish, doesn’t include phone, broadband and video, and that Time Warner’s network is better. Time Warner Cable is naturally calling the lawsuit “without merit.” Verizon wants TWC to stop running the ads and issue a retraction, as well as compensate them for lost revenue. We’re not positive which ad Verizon is referring to, but if it’s anything like the ad after the break — which has some downright false implications about Time Warner Cable using fiber optics “for over a decade” — then Verizon very well might have something here. [Disclosure: Engadget is part of the Time Warner family]

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