While Magic Jack’s cheap VoIP dongle generally works rather well, Broadbandreports.com’s forums are occasionally littered with complaints about the company’s business practices, be it it for little things like a website hit counter that used to artificially inflate their trial participant count (since fixed), or misleading marketing practices (like saying today is the last day of a free trial promotion, every single day). Users generally overlook these problems for one reason: the service is dirt cheap, and works.

Like many companies, Magic Jack also likes burying things in their fine print and terms of service. Among them, the company includes language that requires users engage in binding arbitration – a process that usually ends with the consumer losing, since the arbitration company works for the corporation being complained about. For most of the decade, the courts have repeatedly told companies that this language isn’t legal, but that hasn’t stopped it from being included in TOS anyway.

Back in 2008, gadget and culture blog Boing Boing ran a rather simple post highlighting some of Magic Jack’s more dubious practices, including their bogus free trial user counter, their use of behavioral ad technology, and their inclusion of arbitration language in their terms of service. Magic Jack didn’t like the post very much apparently, because they wound up suing Boing Boing for defamation. Unfortunately for Magic Jack, all of Boing Boing’s claims were true, and Magic Jack has been forced to pay the website $50,000:

We had no idea that it would file a baseless lawsuit to try and shut me up, that CEO Dan Borislow would offer to buy our silence after disparaging his own lawyers, or that MagicJack would ultimately face legal consequences for trying to intimidate critics. . . At several points in the process, we could have taken a check and walked away: as it is, the award doesn’t quite cover our costs. But we don’t like being bullied, and we wanted the chance to tell anyone else threatened by this company what to expect.

According to Boing Boing, Magic Jack’s suit claimed the blog’s post subjected the VoIP outfit to “hate, ridicule and obloquy.” The site claims MagicJack CEO Dan Borislow contacted them once he learned of the tenuous nature of his case in California court, agreed to a settlement, and then subsequently backed out. Once forced to settle, Magic Jack then demanded that the settlement dollar total be kept confidential. Boing Boing, unsurprisingly, didn’t think that was a good idea:

We offered not to publish the amount of this settlement if Borislow would donate $25,000 to charity. MagicJack, however, offered to pay our entire legal bill only if we’d agree to keep the whole dispute confidential; when we refused, Borislow wrote that he would ‘see us in court.’ Nonetheless, we’re happy with the outcome. The irony for MagicJack is that the proceedings are public record, so the silence it sought was effectively worthless.

Of course the lesson learned is that in the Internet age, the harder a company works to stifle criticism, the more attention that criticism gets. The better path is perhaps to listen to what your customers are saying about your business practices, and change them where possible if you value your customers.

Boing Boing has posted all legal documents pertinent to the case for those interested.

Link to the original article…

In what appears to be a promotion gone wrong, Cox Communications has accidentally offered free PlayStation 3′s to every Cox customer in Arizona that signs up for service or upgrades existing service. The deal was supposedly intended only to lure in new Cox customers, but Cox’s marketing team accidentally sent the flyers out to all customers.

Yep, they screwed up.

Judging from posts in the Broadbandreports.com’s forums, Cox did try pretty hard to honor the deal, which requires users sign a 12 month contract (and Cox’s ETF is roughly equivalent to the cost of a PS3). Some users who tried to get in on the deal late (and via word of mouth from customers who got flyers) aren’t getting PS3′s, and have complained to the Consumerist about Cox shutting down the promotion.

So, if you’re in Arizona, did you get one?

Link to the original article…

If you listen to some certain monstrous cable company, their overpriced and oft-litigated cables are worth every penny. I disagree. As do a lot of other people and companies that have been proving that same company claims to be more marketing hype than quality product. Sure, all you have to do is Google the phrase “high price cable challenge” to verify that the ongoing debate about high priced cables versus lower-priced cables is still ongoing as of today. But in the end… it just boils down to what works well for you and what you can afford.

With some cables coming with esoteric terms and overly expensive prices, let’s face it… nobody can really afford a bad experience due to the cables if they’re expensive or not.

So for this review, I got to do something extremely fun. Instead of going through a bunch of electronic scopes to measure the effectiveness of a cable or two… no time for that nerdy nonsense. I just grabbed the nearest LG 47LH90 [ site here ] and a Sony PlayStation3, a Monster THX 700 4′ HDMI cable [ Best Buy link here ] and an Optimized Cable 6′ HDMI cable [ site here ]. For the record, I also included some thin 6′ HDMI cable that came with some other piece of hardware I’ve had laying around that came with some piece of equipment as my “control group”.

With the unnamed cable, the thing had one end that absolutely refused to fit properly into my television. It was warped slightly but it would “fit”. I expected the video from this ill-fitting HDMI cable to be rather bad but it was rather clear… as long as I didn’t touch the cable. This is far from ideal. So I replace Mr. Unnamed Cable for the Monster cable… mind you, as unscientific as this review has been so far, the video was infinitely better and the audio was clearer. Things just worked better, as it should. But let’s’ be clear… this is an $80.00 cable. So it had better work as advertised.

After a full hour of playing Uncharted 2 on the PlayStation3 with the Monster HDMI cable, I had to give the Optimized Cable Company 6′ HDMI cable a chance. Won’t lie… for $13.00 bucks, I wasn’t really expecting much. Sure, the company has a good idea – bringing good cables to good people for less money. That usually works for me… it means more money for yet another PlayStation3 game, or a few Blu-Ray movies. But there is a thing as too cheap… such as that unnamed, thin HDMI cable that I had laying around. That unnamed cable was just… too bad. I’d lose my religion if that were the only cable I had laying around.

Looking at the specs on the Optimized Cable HDMI cable, it has specs that go head to head against the Monster THX 700 cable:

Cable Type: HDMI Male to HDMI Male Cable
Length: 6 Foot
Most Current HDMI Version: 1.3b1
Gauge: 28 AWG (American Wire Gauge)
Bandwidth: 340 Mhz 10.2 Gbps / 120 Hz Refresh Rate
Connector Finish: Gold
Shielding level: 3x Triple
Shielding type: EMI (Electromagnetic Interference)
Certified HDMI: Yes
HDCP Compliant: Yes
CEC Compliant: Yes
ROHS Compliant: Yes
Backwards Compatible with HDMI Version 1.2: Yes
Supports Blu Ray & HD DVD 1080p: Yes
Supports 480p, 720p 1080i, 1080p, 1440p: Yes
Supports Lossless DTS 8 Channel Audio: Yes
Supports TrueHD & DTS-HD: Yes

So how did the Optimized Cable Company HDMI cable do? It fit properly, was heavier than I expected, and didn’t feel cheap or flimsy. And I didn’t see a difference with it and the Monster one. Not one bit. No loss in sound, no loss in color, no bleeding, no static, it didn’t get in the way of me playing Uncharted 2 for another 2 hours ignoring the phone and bypassing a couple of bathroom breaks nor did it really seem like it was a less superior cable.

Sure, I could hook up all kind of machines to show that this cable probably can only use about 95% of the proposed 10.2Gbps throughput, but as far as I can tell you as a consumer… it is $68 dollars cheaper than the Monster Cable and delivered the same exact experience. And in this economy… that’s enough savings and positive experience to recommend cables from Optimized Cable Company.

4.5 out of 5 (Highly Recommended)

[ Optimized Cable Company ] [ Optimized Cable HDMI Cable ]