Just to clarify... There's no New Zealand law that says it's illegal to lock a mobile handset. Actually there's nothing on this.

About a year Vodafone New Zealand decided to lock their handsets and public outcry made them back on their position.

At the same time the Commerce Commission said they wouldn't like to see handset locking happening in New Zealand, since we only had two large mobile operators and that could lead to problems.

Vodafone scrapped their plans on locking handsets out of their consideration of public comments and the ComCom comments.

Mobile operators are free to do as they please. Telecom New Zealand for example still locks their old dual mode CDMA/GSM models. They don't lock handsets on their new WCDMA network though.

@23 "I heard something a couple months ago about Telecom supposedly sharing their new coverage network with Vodafone, i.e., if you can't get signal off Vodafone's network, you'd lock into a Telecom antenna if there is one."

Telecom doesn't share any network with Vodafone. 2 degrees does.

Those "customizations we haven't seen before" are just the screens on SPB Mobile Shell.

This script sounds wrong for a few reasons. First the Google AdSense ToS is clear that you can only post code to a page if authorised by the owner. Second you cannot create software with embedded AdSense code.

As for your comment "So, users can OPT-IN to see ads and donate to Wikipedia with their attention (to the ads)," this is not correct. Unless is the targeted type of ads (CPM) Wikipedia would only benefit of clicks. And users who actively enable this option is the same as saying users are willing to "click to reward" Wikipedia, when they should really "click to visit an interesting product".

This is against the AdSense idea: they are actually providing a service to the advertisers (AdWords) who buys attention from the publishers' audience (AdSense). They are not there to collect clicks!

I got one this week, from Vodafone NZ for review: http://www.geekzone.co.nz/freitasm

Goodness folks, no one read the specs? The PC runs Linux (Portuguese version), not Microsoft Windows. The whole post is wrong!

It runs on Windows Mobile Pocket PC. The 2125 is a Windows Mobile Smartphone. Check this post: http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp?contentid=5374

I disagree in one point (not about the purchase): I feel IE is fast and stable - and my living is in front of a computer, and IE is the most used tool (followed by Outlook). I actually have Opera installed on my machine but I rather use a plugin such as Maxthon (www.maxthon.com) to provide tabbed browsing on IE than to use Opera.

You know those "coincidences", like when you see something you've never seem before and they start showing up everywhere in front of you? I have an old LinkedIn account, and just last night decided "oh well, why not use it", and did the same Outlook import. Interesting what I've found around my network...

I think the whole debate is because of revenue impact due to proxy services usage. You can read the next paragraphs, or jump to the last one ;) Follow http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp?contentid=1216 to find an article from July 2003, when I first saw Skweezer working. At that time Skweezer was by subscription only (the free, ad based model was introduced last month). Also, I link to another two free services (these were free since their start). You'll see that Skweezer (the paid version), is more than a proxy service. It's also a web browser based e-mail client. This kind of tools were available for some time and lots of sites covering mobile (Pocket PC, Palm, mobile phones) have known these tools for a while. Interesting that only now this is an issue. I also live of the revenue generated from Geekzone, and it's in my interest to have as many impressions as possible. However, if a few impressions go to a mobile device through a service like Skweezer at least I capture my audience, in the hopes they will read Geekzone later on a full-blown desktop browser. I'm running the Opera Browser for Smartphones (Technical Preview) and Microsoft's own Pocket Internet Explorer on my Windows Mobile Smartphone, and guess what? Opera will only show the ALT tags for images by default, and ads with standard size (468x60, 728x90, 120x600, 160x600) are removed. Pocket Internet Explorer will not show any ad that requires Javascript. Shall we also contact these companies since their browsers are removing the adverts? I've followed an interesting thread on http://www.webmasterworld.com about popup and ad blockers. In that thread (I can't find it now), webmasters were discussing if programs like Norton, Zone Alarm and others were impacting on their revenue streams, seeing that they block all ads by default, and users were not even aware of this behavior, and not willing to change the settings. Just an idea (YMMV), but in my site I think up to 40% of the impressions do not print the banners. I blame this on ad blockers, and really think users should be aware of this. Back to the topic, users on mobile phones with Opera (Windows Mobile or Symbian) will not see the ads anyway. By using a service like Skweezer they have a chance of reducing the mobile on-line cost by reducing the size of the page being transferred. Skweezer is not (AFAIK) intended to be used on desktops. It's for users of small devices. If their stats are correct, loading the Geekzone homepage on Skweezer saves the user 11.8KB. On a GPRS connection this is a $0.02 saving per page loaded. Remember that in the US operators offer unlimited GPRS plans, but Europe, Australia/New Zealand are different markets with different economics. Perhaps they should limit the access to mobile browsers? It is an idea. One of the free services I've reviewed before does it already. Ok, their free service place their ads on the pages downloaded (actually only a couple of text links on the bottom), this is your point. It's a business model to keep the service. They're not stealing the content per se, but instead reducing your revenue streams. This is the main concern.