Google is preparing to sell mobile phone plans directly to customers and manage their calls and mobile data over a cellular network, according to three people with knowledge of the plans.
The new service is expected run on Sprint and T-Mobile’s networks, two people familiar with the product say. Google is expected to reach deals to buy wholesale access to those carriers’ mobile voice and data networks, making it a mobile virtual network operator, or MVNO, they say.
This could be huge (The Verge verifies it). Of course, this is US-only.
They will be Boost Mobile but can stalk you and pepper you with ads more and more!
Scary!
Last I heard the carriers over there already do that.
Yes, because every time you use anything by Google you’re peppered with ads….. /s
Yeah, pretty much. I generally don’t notice a lot because I always use adblock. That’s right, the web to me is completely horrible, if I didn’t have adblock, I’d probably actually not be fat and/or would play a lot more video games instead of browsing the Internet. Adblock made me FAT!
I use Android on a daily basis and yet I’m not seeing ads in it. I use GMail via AquaMail and Thunderbird on a daily basis, and yet I’m not seeing ads there, either. I don’t see any ads by Google on Google+.
I wonder, where are all these god awful, horrible ads that are apparently plastered everywhere if what you’re doing is even remotely connected to Google. I mean, sure, there are ads when you use Google’s search, but apart from that, how many Google products actually do keep plastering ads in your face?
Interesting because most apps on Google play are ad based, Gmail web interface just smacks you with ads, and lord YouTube, I don’t even use YouTube anymore because they have Ads from top to bottom. I can’t even put up a two minute video of my cat without a 30 second ad and then inline ad’s being in it.
Last I heard, it’s the devs themselves that decide to make their apps ad-supported. It’s not like Google is forcing them to be.
YouTube does have ads, but GMail can perfectly well be used without seeing a single ad, it’s only your own decision to insist on using the web-interface. Oh, but don’t let rationality diminish your hatred and ranting, having ads on YouTube and search and on GMail’s web-interface absolutely means everything connected to Google is riddled with ads.
Actually that tends to be more related to that fact that people expect things for free and won’t pay for apps which is why most apps are supported by Ads.
So Google makes almost 90% of their revenue and profits off ads and selling your personal info to marketers, how do you figure that thats not gonna continue to happen in the future and not reach other parts of Googles properties. I mean Google plus yeah no ads, but no one uses that and its a flop so Google just lets it languish out there till they get bored with it and then will probably kill it.
But yeah I am trying to figure out what else Google makes money off?
Don’t try and move the goal-posts. I never said they won’t track you, the discussion was about being showered with ads. Of course they will track you, but why are carriers, Microsoft, Apple and everyone else getting scot-free and Google getting all the hatred here? All the carriers do tracking and some even go so far as to deliberately tagging your traffic and thus making all your data even easier for them and everyone else to track.
As for the ads, I do not know if there will be ads or not, but people here are lambasting Google already before anyone has any actual facts about the whole thing! Besides, would a few ads be such a negative thing if you got, say, higher/no datacaps? I have an ad-supported plan here where I get 1-3 ads as an SMS or e-mail a week, but in return it’s cheaper. For many people with low or no money something like that is great, like, say, college students.
Excuse me to tell you this but this makes you sound like the traditional Apple Fanboy.
Google doesn’t sell your personal info to marketers, they sell services related to the personal info they got from you.
Let’s give an example…
If you visit, on a daily basis, multiple lego websites, Google (And all those that can do it) will track your habits and you will see adds related to Legos pop up regularly while your browse.
Google used your browsing habbits to provide you adds related to your preferences… IN NO WAY does the third party marketer here know anything about that. The only thing they know is how many people clicked on the link. They don’t know that you, John Smith, are a lego fetishist.
If Google was selling your personal info to marketers, everyone would be able to read this almost public DB and would know you are a Lego Fetishist.
Apple Fanboys (Mostly) seem not to be able (or not willing) to see the difference but it’s a very important one.
Edit : Ugly Typo
Edited 2015-01-22 12:38 UTC
Your comment doesn’t make sense:
1. Youtube survive because of Google’s ad.
2. You can upload any video w/o any ads if you did not enable your google adsense. If you enable adsense, then google will pay you.
3. You may try other video sites that are ad-free but nowhere in youtube’s capacity to host number of videos.
Edited 2015-01-22 06:13 UTC
Yes but they don’t have the end to end ability that Google will now have.
Very true. And since their business has now flattened out (Not growing) they have to figure out other ways to control your eyes and your data.
Unless you block ads.
Which means that if you drive outside of city limits, your odds of still having reliable cell coverage are up a rat’s ass. Not a bad deal though if you live in a large city and don’t need cell service while traveling.
I travel the state for work, which means Sprint, T-Mobile and US Cellular are not options for me for my personal cellphone nor for my work providing phones for their employees. AT&T and Verizon, “the evil duopoly” as some insist on calling them, provide service over the entire state, so we support them for that. It costs more to provide that ubiquitous service, I understand that, so it’s not a real problem.
People don’t see the big picture here:
Google wants to take ownership of the Android ecosystem back, at least to some degree.
Who killed the Android Silver program? The carriers.
Who puts a ton of crapware in smartphones, sometimes duplicating functionality provided by Google? The carriers.
And who is responsible for pushing “customized” phones instead of Nexuses and Google Play edition phones? The carriers.
Google can’t regain control of their own ecosystem without becoming a carrier. Funny thing is that it’s this very lack of control that propelled Android in it’s first years, with carriers pushing it aggressively because they could “customize” it.
Edited 2015-01-22 03:40 UTC
Who will Google be engaging to become an MVNO? The carriers.
D’oh!
Edited 2015-01-22 05:37 UTC
The carriers can’t put crapware on phones they don’t sell.
Next time you’ll sit on the toilet with your brand new Nexus device and use Google as a mobile carrier, an add will pop up trying to sell you another brand of toilet paper claiming it’s much more efficient that the one you currently use.