A British corporation, Jamster, has achieved great commercial success with their "crazy frog" ringtone for cellphones. Many consumers do not realize that they have entered a long term agreement to recieve text messages advertising other ringtones when they download this ringtone. They are charged a fee for each text message they receive. Here is a link to a story about this.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/articl...1673184,00.html

I think this is outrageous. It is a blatant rip-off of consumers. I hope that this practice is outlawed, and that the perpetrators are punished.

I believe we will see more things hidden or cloaked as technology advances.
Sell, sell, sell.

Read the fine print, people.

I believe part of the reason they are being investigated was that it was possible to sign up without ever having been exposed to the fine print. The fine print was in the TV ads. To get the ringtone, and agree to the contract, one merely had to dial a certain phone number and the rest was automatic. If someone told one of his friends about this cool ringtone you could get just by calling this number, the fine print would never even be displayed to this second person. They could enter into a contract without being aware that they were doing so.