Verizon Buys AOL For $4.4 Billion

Via CNN Money:

Verizon is buying AOL for about $4.4 billion, or $50 a share, the companies announced Tuesday. The deal aims to create a major new player in the digital media business by combining one of the biggest mobile network providers with a leading content producer. It's part of Verizon's plan to dominate a future in which all content -- from TV channels to publications -- are streamed over the Internet. It also fits into the company's plan to connect everything from smartphones to TVs and refrigerators in the "Internet of Things." AOL, which is perhaps best known for its 90s era dial-up service, has transformed over the past few years into an Internet media giant. It's online properties include The Huffington Post, TechCrunch, Engadget, Makers and AOL.com. AOL boasts a significant advertising business, with an estimated $600 million in revenue. That's also part of the appeal for Verizon as it plans to launch its own digital and video platform later this year.

AOL will keep its name and operate as a separate division.

One Million Moms Vs Verizon

You knew this one was coming.

Dear Joe, Verizon has a new commercial where the whole ad is based on the slogan "half-fast" internet. This double entendre is repeated over and over again. The entire commercial's dialogue has various people, mostly families, including a mother in front of her child, saying half-fast instead of half-a$$ed. Verizon should be more responsible in their marketing decisions. Let them know that as a parent and a consumer you are offended that they care more about their financial gain than what impression they are making on our children. Verizon executives apparently don't care about what children hear as long as it puts money in their pockets. Everyone knows kids repeat what they see and hear. This is weak marketing, and Verizon should have the corporate responsibility to not use an age old euphemism that offends families. Take Action: Please send Verizon an email letter requesting they cancel their new "half-fast" commercial immediately!

Obama: Nobody's Listening To Your Calls

President Obama today addressed the latest flap:

"When it comes to telephone calls, nobody is listening to your telephone calls. That's not what this program is about. What the intelligence community is doing is looking at phone numbers, and durations of calls; they are not looking at people's names and they're not looking at content.  If the intelligence committee actually wants to listen to a phone call they have to go back to a federal judge, just like they would in a criminal investigation."

FCC: Verizon Can't Charge For Tethering

Verizon has been fined $1.25M for charging customers who used a third-party app to evade their tethering fee.

The company had asked Google to remove "tethering" apps from its Android Market. Tethering allows users to plug a smartphone into a computer and use the phone's cellular connection to power the computer's Internet access. The apps circumvented Verizon's own tethering service, which costs $20 per month. In 2008, when Verizon bought the licenses to the wireless frequencies that it now uses for its 4G service, the FCC imposed rules barring the company from restricting its customers' ability to use the devices or apps of their choosing. The rules only apply to Verizon and not other wireless carriers.

Tethering fees were a frequent topic at this year's Netroots as the venue's wifi was often unreliable.

Verizon Will Charge You To Pay Your Bill

If you think you've heard it all, hang on to your thinker. Verizon is about to launch a $2 charge for customers who pay their bills online or over the phone.

Beginning on Jan. 15, Verizon will charge all customers a $2 “convenience fee” for paying their cellphone bill online or over the phone, according to documents obtained by Droid-Life. That’s right. If you’re living in the 21st century and don’t pay your cell phone bills via mailed paper check, you will be charged $2 every month, despite the fact that automated phone payments and online bill paying are likely the two cheapest ways Verizon can accept payment. Verizon explains the fee in this way: “Verizon Wireless strives to provide you with the best wireless experience. Effective January 15, 2012, we are implementing a $2.00 online and telephone payment convenience fee to help allow us to continue to support these bill payment options in these channels. The fee will be waved if you pay by electronic check or if you enroll in AutoPay.”

Unreal.

Verizon Workers Go On Strike

Verizon made $27 billion in profit revenue in just the last quarter, but wants employees to give up some of their health and pension benefits.

Verizon Ends Unlimited Data Plans

Verizon has become the latest carrier to stop offering unlimited data plans.

That means subscribers will have through the end of today to lock in the carrier’s $29.99 monthly unlimited data plan — or fall into a new tiered model charging between $30 to $80 a month. Rumors surfaced in recent weeks that the Basking Ridge-based carrier, the nation’s largest wireless provider, was planning to join competitors AT&T and T-Mobile in dumping its unlimited data plan, but the company would not confirm them until yesterday. In a phone interview, spokeswoman Brenda Raney said the move was an effort to preempt network overload problems as more consumers turn to smart phones.

Sprint is the last major provider still offering unlimited plans.

The Verizon Guy Comes Out

Now that the long run of Verizon's "Can You Hear Me Now?" campaign is over, actor Paul Marcarelli has come out and is talking about the anti-gay abuse he endured while playing the character known as Test Man.

Marcarelli has a home in Guilford, Connecticut, and five summers ago, kids in an SUV began driving past at night, yelling, “Can you hear me now?” Later, says Marcarelli, “they started screaming ‘faggot’ up at my house. It got progressively more profane as the years went by.” One night, it happened while some friends were over, and he decided to call the police. “As soon as I hung up the phone,” he says, “I realized that in order for them to do anything about it, it would have to become a report that would go into a police log.” Worried about the publicity—and the questions that might ensue if it came out that the actor playing Test Man was gay—he declined to file a report.

Marcarelli has produced and written a film titled The Green, which "centers on how a small town slowly turns against a gay couple when one of the men, a schoolteacher, gets ensnared in scandal." His movie is currently being pitched to film festivals.

Gum Poll

(Source)

Unicorns Are Real

The release of long-believed to be mythical Verizon iPhone was announced today.

Sam Seder On Net Neutrality

What do we have to fear from Google and Verizon?

No More White Pages For New York?

Verizon has asked New York state regulators to give them permission to discontinue annual delivery of the residential White Pages.

The company estimates that it would save nearly 5,000 tons of paper by ending the automatic distribution of the books. Only about one of every nine households uses the hard-copy listings anymore, according to Verizon, which cited a 2008 Gallup survey. Most have switched to looking up numbers online or calling directory assistance. The phone book for many people, it seems, has gone from indispensable tool to unavoidable nuisance. “Phone books have been a very visceral issue,” said Scott Cassel, executive director of the Product Stewardship Institute, an environmental group in Boston. “They do tend to pile up, particularly in apartments. More and more, people are finding that they don’t need them, but they can’t find a way to make them stop.”

White Pages directories would still be available by request. The highly profitable Yellow Pages directories will continue to be delivered. And as ignored as the White Pages.

Verizon Votes Down Trans Protections

Verizon shareholders have voted to reject a proposed amendment to the company's employment policies which would have added gender identity protections.

Preliminary results showed that the resolution, which was opposed by the company's board of directors, won 17 percent of shareholder approval. It takes 3 percent for a proposal to come back, which it achieved. According to Alberto Canal, of Verizon media relations, more than 2 billion votes were cast. Canal said the company has 340 employees in the Bay Area.

According to a Verizon spokesperson, GLOBE, the company's LGBT employee resource group, supported the position of the company. However, GLOBE's president has apparently been told he may not comment on the issue. Backers of the amendment plan to resubmit next year.

(Via - Bay Area Reporter)