Verizon Rejects Text Messages From an Abortion Rights Group
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Verizon Wireless has rejected a request from Naral Pro-Choice America to make Verizonâs mobile network available for a text-message program.
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By DAVE CARPENTER CHICAGO - Like any normal consumer, Tom Gruss was leery about the idea of a company sending promotional text messages straight to his cell phone.
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Vodafone Group on Monday denied a newspaper report it is considering making a $160 billion bid for its U.S. partner in the wireless phone business, Verizon Communications.
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After facing criticism for blocking content on its network, Verizon Wireless yesterday reversed its decision to bar an abortion-rights group from sending text messages to Verizon subscribers.
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Vodafone Group PLC on Monday denied a newspaper report it is considering making a $160 billion bid for its U.S. partner in the wireless phone business, Verizon Communications Inc.
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Verizon has told NARAL that it will not allow the reproductive rights organization to use its wireless network to distribute it.
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A federal appeals court Monday rejected Michigan's attempt to ban a procedure opponents call partial-birth abortion, ruling the law unconstitutional because it could also prohibit other abortion procedures.
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NEW YORK, December 15  - The worldâs leading mobile-phone operator, Vodafone Group Plc, denied yesterday that it had approved a bid by its partner, Verizon Communications Inc, for Sprint (FON.
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Verizon Wireless said on Thursday it reversed an earlier refusal to allow an abortion rights advocacy group to set up a text message alert system with subscribers and changed its policy on such messaging.
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Anti-abortion leaders are accusing one of their own, Focus on Family founder James Dobson, of misrepresenting a Supreme Court decision that upheld a ban on late-term abortions.
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The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal by commercial telemarketers opposed to the popular program, in which consumers can put their names on a list if they do not want to be called.
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Who's blocking all the great e-mail from Europe? Verizon is, and its customers aren't very happy about it. The company says it's only trying to block spam, but the filters aren't working very well. By John Gartner.
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Global telecommunications giant Vodafone on Thursday said it would retain its 45 percent stake in US company Verizon Wireless, rejecting proposals from an activist shareholder group.
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(InfoWorld) - Verizon WirelessÂ has reversed a decision to block text messages on its network from abortion rights group Naral Pro-Choice America after an outcry fromÂ net neutrality advocatesÂ and others. The controversy erupted Thursday, after a New York Times story said Verizon had rejected a request from Naral to send text messages to wireless customers who sign up for them. Verizon had said it has the right to block controversial or unsavory messages. Several other political groups, including the Republican National Committee and Amnesty International, have used text message campaigns. But Verizon backtracked on its position Thursday morning local time. "The decision to not allow text messaging on an important, though sensitive, public policy issue was incorrect, and we have fixed the process that led to this isolated incident," Verizon spokesman Jeffrey Nelson, said in a statement. "Upon learning about this situation, senior Verizon Wireless executives immediately reviewed the decision and determined it was an incorrect interpretation of a dusty internal policy." The old policy was developed before text messaging protections such as spam filters adequately protected customers from unwanted messages, Verizon said. Public Knowledge, a digital rights advocacy group, said Verizon's decision still shows the need for the U.S. Congress to pass aÂ net neutrality law, which would prohibit telecom carriers and broadband providers from blocking or slowing content from competitors or other groups. "Instant replay is not the way to guarantee the rights of Americans to communicate freely over telecommunications networks," Gigi Sohn, Public Knowledge's president, said in an e-mail. "You cannot have unfettered communications by having the telephone company review each decision whenever a controversial issue is raised. A text message like this one alerting Naral supporters to act quickly on a pending political issue is useless after hours of delay by the telephone company referees." Cynthia Brumfield, president of tech consultancy Emerging Media Dynamics, called the original Verizon action "unbelievable" in a post on her IP Democracy blog Thursday. "Verizon is seriously [messed] up if it thinks Naral is promoting an 'agenda' but the Republican National Committee is not," Brumfield wrote. "And clearly Verizon believes that a woman's right to choose is somehow 'unsavory.'" The issue goes beyond Verizon's apparent political leanings, Brumfield added. "What's truly disturbing is that Verizon is imposing its own political views on its wireless customers without their consent, something that the carrier could not do in the landline voice world," she wrote. Naral on Thursday morning was encouraging visitors to its Web site to contact Verizon about its original decision. "What kind of company would deny its customers the ability to use their cell phones to participate in our democracy?" Naral said.
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The U.S. Supreme Court rejected on Monday a free-speech challenge to a New York law banning the wearing of masks at public gatherings by a group claiming ties to the Ku Klux Klan.
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A group that helps female Democratic candidates who support abortion rights is asking a federal judge to block new campaign finance rules that it argues will cripple its ability to participate in state and local elections.
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By Elise Ackerman, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.  Sep. 22--An effort by San Jose State University to ban the Skype phone service has been put on hold in the face of fierce objections from students and staff.