To Our Readers

BY JOHN FLANAGAN

Sunday, August 26, 2001

Wireless technology
serves shameless
commerce

EDITORIALISTS are well known for either pointing with pride or viewing with alarm. This week I'm in the alarmed camp.

Two related issues raised my dudgeon. The first concerns Acme Rent-a-Car, a company that has installed global positioning monitor-recorder-cell phone systems in its cars. Sounds innocent enough --you'd expect a rental car company to want to keep track of its vehicles. In fact, rental companies have been using GPS to keep track of cars since the mid-'90s.

The catch is GPS is able not only to locate a car but also to compute how fast it is going. A creative mind at Acme recognized this as a revenue opportunity and decided to add substantial charges to customers' credit card bills, $150, for each time they drove faster than 79 mph.

This gambit came to light after one Connecticut driver turned in one of these Big Brother-mobiles and found Acme had charged his card $450 for speeding three times.

The case is in the courts. Acme claims it just uses the device to track their cars, not the people in them. Acme's lawyer says it is "not out to make money on this." Perhaps not --after they deduct his fees.

I'm also galled that, while I wasn't watching, the Federal Communications Commission mandated that by year's end new cell phones be able to broadcast the location of any cell-phone users who dials 911.

The hitch is that this same "feature" could also be used to trigger sending advertising messages to cell phones whenever they come within range of a store, vending machine or other spending opportunity.

As I type this on my computer, my email in-box is filling up with unwanted advertising, scams and junk. Email used to be a delightful way to keep track of friends and family and an efficient tool for doing business. Today, it's an annoyance.

Wireless entrepreneurs assure us that users will be able to set up filters to screen these messages. Yeah, right. I've set up filters to eliminate unwanted email spam to no avail.

So, please just send my cell-phone e-advertising to Acme Rent-a-Car.

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John Flanagan is editor and publisher of the Star-Bulletin.
To reach him call 529-4748, fax to 529-4750, send
e-mail to publisher@starbulletin.com or write to
500 Ala Moana Blvd., Suite 7-500, Honolulu, Hawaii 96813.