On Mon, Oct 11, 2010 at 04:31:36PM +1030, David Lloyd wrote:
> Well, considering they're one of the big three companies supporting it the
> effort, the service does give a sensible response, many people have noticed
> this (i.e. PEOPLE) whom I personally trust not ALL to have fallen for
> something villainous. Plus, whatever we might think of Telstra, I'm fairly
> certain they'd act on something that was phoney in the interests of their own
> reputation.
I didn't see any causal connection between www.ideasforgood.com.au and Telstra.
www.ideasforgood.com.au is registered to "DROGA5 AUSTRALIA PTY LTD", not
Telstra,
and hosted on Bulletproof Networks, not Telstra. However, searching Telstra's
website shows a press release dated today:
http://www.telstra.com.au/abouttelstra/media-centre/announcements/send-an-sms-to-help-connect-remote-aussie-kids-with-their-future.xml
So it's legit.
I wouldn't trust association ("telstra promotes OLPC so this must be legit"),
popularity ("my friends are smart enough to not get ripped off") or Telstra's
ability to protect its reputation as sufficient evidence of the veracity of
that site. On the face it smells like a scam - kinda like that Bill Gates'
Money chain letter, or at least a stunt, as it is asking the reader to do
something useless to indirectly support a good cause. And then I remembered,
Telstra gets revenue from every SMS sent from their network, probably also
for every cross-network SMS received. The revenue from those SMSs will offset
the cost of supplying OLPC laptops, perhaps up to 25% of the hardware cost.
And if the promotion is very successful it will reach its 500-laptop limit
and the SMSs will continue to come in; potentially paying for all of the
promotional costs.
Nick.
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