• by Dara Kerr   @darakerr July 30, 2014

AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile all allegedly “crammed” customers with third-party charges that cost hundreds of millions of dollars, Senate report says.

The Senate has joined the Federal Trade Commission and Federal Communications Commission in chastising the four top US wireless carriers for skimming money from customers.

In a lengthy report (PDF) released by Senate Commerce Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) on Wednesday, AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile are accused of a practice known as “cramming,” in which wireless carriers allow mystery fees to appear on consumers’ phone bills without notification.

These mystery fees are typically fraudulent and unauthorized third-party charges, ranging from $1.99 to $19.99 a month, for things like ringtones or “premium” services, such as a daily horoscope. Users don’t normally see these charges because they’re buried deep within monthly phone bills.

The report calls cramming a “widespread” problem and says that “hundreds of millions of dollars” in unauthorized charges have likely racked up on users’ monthly phone bills.

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James Kendrick for Mobile News | August 1, 2014 

If you follow the news of the mobile tech industry, you have likely seen stories about dropping tablet sales. These are often accompanied by an analysis that wonders if the buying public is ready to cast tablets aside and move on the something new.

The latest example of tablets in the news was an interview of Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly by Walt Mossberg of Re/code. Joly made the statement that tablet sales are “crashing,” and that set analyst pens into overdrive. Fact is, Joly went on to admit that “crashing” is a strong term.

I don’t think that interest in tablets is waning, everywhere you go you see owners happily using one tablet or another. They carry them everywhere they go and whip them out every chance they get. They have replaced the laptop in many cases for many owners.

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By Zack Whittaker for Between the Lines | August 1, 2014

Some people volunteer at shelters. Some people play video games. Some work tirelessly for 80 hours a week for the sake of their startup.

Some destroy the global trust in the US technology industry.

In a single two-hour courtroom session on Thursday morning — just in time for lunch — US District Judge Loretta Preska ruled on a case that has massive global implications for US technology giants.

It’s not like there was much left in the wake of the Edward Snowden disclosures, which threw nine Silicon Valley giants under the global surveillance bus more than a year ago. But we were coming to a point where our collective trust levels in these companies, which are fighting for their right to disclose government data request figures, were slowly rising — at least in the US.

To the outside world, lack of trust was still a big issue. Particularly for Europe. As the closest continental friend to the US, there was a lot of work that needed to be done.

But as relations were beginning to improve, the US judiciary decided that, for the purposes of its own law enforcement …