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: Legal Blog Watch

Should Mobile Phone Carriers Dictate What Type of 'Speech' is Acceptable in Text Messages?

By Bruce Carton

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Under federal law, telecommunications companies cannot engage in "any unjust or unreasonable discrimination" related to charges, services and other practices related to voice communications. Consumer groups have been arguing for several years that text messages should also be covered by this federal communications law, but with no success. The issue is front and center again this week, CNET reports, as T-Mobile has been sued by a text message marketing company called Ez Texting "for allegedly blocking access to the T-Mobile network because of an Ez Texting client that provided information on medical marijuana." As CNET explains, Ez Texting provides the infrastructure for the type of promotions where consumers are asked to text a word to a specific number to get more information on a product (i.e., "Text 'jeans' to 313131"). One of Ez Texting's clients, legalmarijuanadispensary.com (aka "WeedMaps") helps legal medical marijuana patients connect with other patients in their geographic region. Legal or not, however, Ez Texting alleges in its lawsuit that T-Mobile disapproves and has now blocked its access to the T-Mobile network altogether -- an action that will allegedly put Ez Texting out of business if not reversed. In a similar case in 2007 where Verizon allegedly refused...

Full post as published by Legal Blog Watch on September 20, 2010 (boomark / email).