SMS.ac, Inc.

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SMS.ac Inc.

Type	Private
Founded	2001
Headquarters	San Diego, California, USA
Key people	Michael Pousti, Chairman and CEO
Industry	Telephony
Products	SMS messaging
Revenue	unknown
Net income	unknown
Employees	unknown
Website	www.sms.ac

SMS.ac, Inc. is a mobile data communications company based in San Diego, California. It offers text and multimedia messaging services (SMS and MMS) for mobile phones, and operates a website that integrates its mobile phone services with social networking services like a photo album and message board.^[1] SMS.ac claims over 50 million registered users in more than 180 countries, making it the largest community of registered mobile phone users in the world.^[2]

1 Business model
- 1.1 Consumer bill of rights
2 Criticisms
3 See also
4 References

[edit] Business model

SMS.ac derives its revenue through revenue-sharing arrangements with cellular carriers. Specifically, it sends users reverse-billed SMS text messages, which incur a charge to receive. The CEO of SMS.ac, Michael Pousti gave a speech at Global Mobile Congress 2004.^[3]^[4] In that speech, he made the following remarks:

"Mobile operators are uniquely positioned to benefit from revenue shares derived from even the smallest transactions. As a focal point of this nascent but exploding industry, it is important for operators to enter quickly into equitable revenue share agreements with third parties. (To operators) Open your billing systems and you will prosper."
"Nearly 2 billion people worldwide are already paying their mobile providers for mobile phone use. Now, imagine if your company can harness the power of microbilling. If your business has not already embraced an aggressive strategy to evolve to a mobile content or application company, drop most everything you’re doing and prepare your content for mobile. Just be sure to base your offerings on communication. It’s all about communications – not just content."
“If we try and tether the growth too early with compliance and regulations, the chances that we’ll do more harm than good is almost a certainty."
"Integrated billing is the path to the future. Refine and improve the process for third-party entities to collect revenues and get paid. Achieve predictability with billing. Work towards standardization. Without this, the industry won’t ever be real.”

[edit] Consumer bill of rights

In August 2005, the company launched a "Global Mobile Phone Users' Consumer Bill of Rights" ^[5] with the following agenda:

"In order to protect mobile consumers around the world and to instill in them consumer confidence designed to promote the global consumption of goods and services, this Mobile Consumers Bill of Rights was created."

The bill of rights discusses the company's ideals under the following six headings:

Clear Descriptions and Pricing
Privacy, Opt-in and Opt-out
Prompt Possession and Satisfaction
Customer Service and Technical Support
Money-back Refund
Customer Confidence

[edit] Criticisms

SMS.ac is noted in the blog community for its vigorous legal defense of intellectual property such as trademarks, word marks and service marks.^[6]^[7]
An article in the International Herald Tribune, while praising the service's integrated billing option, noted that "At least a handful of consumers, however, have complained on the Internet and in the mainstream press that SMS.ac has charged them for services they never asked for, making that billing relationship into potentially its greatest liability." ^[8]
SMS.ac optionally asks for the password to users' email accounts. Invitations to contacts in that user's address book may also be optionally sent. This process was referred to as spamming in an article later retracted by the Chicago Tribune.^[9] ^[10]

The Terms and Conditions document^[11] of SMS.ac includes the following clause:

"You agree that your public profile information, including but not limited to your display name, photograph, interests and greeting may be utilized by the community representatives or community technology to encourage other users to communicate with you or to interact with the Service."

Users who have chosen to receive premium SMS notifications upon being contacted are also charged for messages initiated by community representatives or community technology that mimics users by including their public profile information.