On Heels Of Favorable FCC Ruling, Verizon Imposes 'Spam' Fees On Text Message Service For Schools, Nonprofits
from the do-not-pass-go,-do-not-collect-$200 dept
Just about a month ago the FCC quietly handed the telecom industry another favor by voting to reclassify text messages as an "information service" instead of a "telecommunications service" under the Telecom Act, effectively freeing text messaging practices from government oversight. While the FCC stated the move was essential in order to fight text spam, consumer groups were quick to note the lack of oversight provided cellular carriers a nifty way to hamper third-party SMS services that might just compete with, or cause problems for, their own offerings.
Fast forward to this month, and lo and behold, Verizon's already ruffling some feathers on this front. Remind, a free school texting, chat and messaging service used by teachers, students, school coaches, and parents, this week sent a notice to its customers stating that it may no longer be able to offer the service on the Verizon network thanks to a new "spam" fee Verizon is imposing on a service that's not really spam. From the notice to customers:
"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.
While several Canadian companies charge similar fees, Remind said on Twitter that Verizon was the only US company (for now) to begin charging this fee, which the company estimates could cost it up to several million dollars annually. And because the FCC gutted all regulatory oversight, the agency eroded any meaningful authority over Verizon or any additional company looking to impose such spurious surcharges. When pressed by Ars Technica, Verizon stuck to its claim that the new surcharge is essential to help combat spam:
"Verizon, which touts its commitment to education, defended the new fee. Such fees are "intended to share costs incurred to help protect students, parents, and teachers from spam and dangerous text messages over the Verizon network, while reducing fraud," Verizon said in a statement to Ars.
Verizon said the "very small fee will be charged only to major text-messaging aggregation companies such as Remind and Twilio–and not schools, parents, or students." The fees "pay for the work required to contain spam and fraud associated with this service," Verizon said.
But Remind and the company they use to send the messages and alerts (Twilio) already pay Verizon money to carry the texts, and this new fee will only compound those costs dramatically to Verizon's direct financial benefit. In the midst of the bickering between the two companies, Verizon issued a news release saying it would back away from its original plan, slightly. This being Verizon, it was unable to do so without attempting to shift the blame entirely to Remind:
"As discussed this week with Remind, 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. 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."
In short, Verizon's "compromise" is that it will reverse the fee for K-12 users of the free Remind service, but that still means numerous other users of the service (like coaches, preschools, and day care centers) will still face the arbitrary fee. Remind tells Ars Technica they've yet to get that proposal in writing, and there's questions as to how K-12 users would even verify their exemption with Verizon in the first place. A better option remains to simply not engage in the cash grab at all.
This particular fight over text messaging oversight began a little more than a decade ago, when Verizon decided to ban a pro-choice group named NARAL Pro-Choice America from sending text messages to Verizon Wireless customers who had opted in to receiving them. Verizon justified the ban by declaring the text messages "controversial or unsavory." A curious move for an industry that has historically cuddled up to marketing spammers and crammers when it's profitable.
Ever since then consumer groups, worried that cellular carriers would abuse their gatekeeper power on the text messaging front, have been urging the FCC to declare text messages a “telecommunications service," making it illegal for carriers to ban, hinder, or impose arbitrary fees on such select SMS services. Of course the Ajit Pai FCC did the exact opposite, and here we are, with non-profits and schools lighting up Twitter with complaints under the #reversethefee hashtag.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: fcc, fees, nonprofits, schools, spam, text messaging
Companies: remind, twilio, verizon
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
'You know what the problem here is? We need a cut from this.'
Verizon said the "very small fee will be charged only to major text-messaging aggregation companies such as Remind and Twilio–and not schools, parents, or students." The fees "pay for the work required to contain spam and fraud associated with this service," Verizon said.
They created the 'service' in order to 'combat' spam, and they are now using the fees from the ones who sign up for it to... deal with the people who sign up to send spam. Or put another way, 'You can send spam, just so long as we get a cut from it.'
Strange really, I could have swore that the companies and their tool in the FCC Pai defended the reclassification by claiming it would allow said companies to reduce spam, not merely profit from it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: 'You know what the problem here is? We need a cut from this.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: 'You know what the problem here is? We need a cut from t
FTFY: For a telecom company anything that is not payed for (at least eleven times) is spam.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: 'You know what the problem here is? We need a cut fr
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: the problem here is ?
why shouldn't a barber charge whatever he wants for a haircut ?
how is this economics stuff really supposed to work ?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: the problem here is ?
It falls apart within defect monopolies where there is little choice but people can't just ditch the service. That *should* be where the government steps in to level the playing field, but the FCC are working for the corporations instead of the people they're meant to protect.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: the problem here is ?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: the problem here is
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: the problem here is
Twilio, of course, passes those costs on to their users. One of those users is Remind who, as they provide a free service to their users, has decided they can't afford to operate for Verizon customers. The article is somewhat misleading in that it says Verizon is charging Remind but they're not.
Interestingly, Verizon is one of the cheapest carriers according to Twilio's pricing charts. It's odd that Remind hadn't already refused to send messages to AT&T, Sprint and other carriers via Twilio.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: 'You know what the problem here is? We need a cut from t
This may well be spam to the recipients too. We had robocalls when I was in school and got a lot of pointless calls (e.g., advertising for school dances). It wasn't an opt-in system. And notice how they say "school closures, classroom activities and other critical information", as if to mislead you into thinking "classroom activities" are critical information—I read that as "school closures, other critical information, and spam".
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: 'You know what the problem here is? We need a cut fr
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: 'You know what the problem here is? We need a cut from this.
If they're adding an additional charge to "known" spammers, doesn't that make them an Accessory to any fraud(s) committed by said spammer(s)?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: 'You know what the problem here is? We need a cut from this.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: 'You know what the problem here is? We need a cut from t
Yay! TUL!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Because the average smartphone owner is not a Techdirt reader and does not understand the issue in the way that we do. They use the same icon on their phone that they've always used.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
While text messaging may be archaic, it's simple, reliable, and most everyone knows how to use it. You can't say that about apps.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Deregulation is wonderful
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Deregulation is wonderful
Every Nation eats the Paint chips it Deserves!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Deregulation is wonderful
Where is John Galt when we need him?
Oh... I'm sorry, you must not have heard. Poor Mr. Galt passed away after a long battle with salmonellosis, small-cell carcinoma, and black-lung disease. (To be fair, though, it was his own fault for not realizing that his meds were just re-labeled tic-tacs... caveat emptor :)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
So, the same argument as when they bitch about Netflix - people are already paying them twice for the service, but they apparently need to be paid a 3rd time just to do their job.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Interestingly, Verizon is still one of the cheapest carriers. See https://www.twilio.com/sms/pricing/usand scroll down to the per-carrier fees for short code messaging.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
https://www.twilio.com/sms/pricing/us
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Does that include the new "you're a spammer, pay up and we'll leave you to it" fee?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
That doesn't make it okay. Just because they're the least evil, doesn't mean that it isn't still evil. Text messaging is nearly zero cost for the carriers, so anything they make is close to 100% profit, this is just gouging. They're getting away with it because we all hate spam so much, and they throw that word in there to pretend like they're fighting it. In this case it negatively affects a legitimate educational service.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Nobody seems to be asking where Remind gets the money to pay for this.
If they're harvesting user info for sale - and they are - then why bother? Your phone company is still going to harvest that same info, now you're just letting a smaller, on-the-edge-of-starvation company harvest it also.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Spam is pernicious, text spam is getting worse. If these parents really need to know about the next Sadie Hawkins dance they can have the school just tweet it, post it on Facebook, email it, post it on the school blog's RSS feed.
Its 2019 - there really isn't any excuse for a parent in this day not being able to handle *one* of those.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Actually no, they're not harvesting user info for sale. The basic service is aimed at individual teachers (like me) and is free to use. They offer a paid School & District plan that they sell to entire schools or school systems which has more powerful features. That's where they get the money to pay for this. They offer a small free tier to attract the bigger sale.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Umm
And WHY does V' even have a problem,,,this is PART of the service they PAID for with free data..
I KNOW...CHANGE the smart phone to another type of msg..
Oh..SMS works on any phone..
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Verizon > Assholes
https://www.verizon.com/about/news/app-provider-remind-threatens-eliminate-free-texting-servi ce-k-12-education-organizations-which
[ link to this | view in chronology ]