Number 313 - June 2009

Magic Jack- To Buy Or Not
by Vinny La Bash, vlabash@comcast.net Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc.
If you have thought about abandoning your traditional land line because your phone bills are too high, you might be attracted to magicJack. It's a small device designed as a plug-and-play USB telephony tool. The product offers unlimited calling within the United States and Canada. International capability has been promised by the end of 2009.    It's very easy to use. Plug it in to your USB port and shortly thereafter the bundled software automatically installs itself. After you register, the company issues your own personal MagicJack phone number. You can't port your existing number into the service, but the company says that capability will be available by the end of 2009. Plug a standard phone into MagicJack's phone jack and you're ready to make calls.    Voice quality is good. It has voice mail, caller ID, call waiting, and call forwarding. Plus there is a 30 day free trial. What's not to like? Nothing if you accept the company's advertising and promotional literature at face value. However, if you read the End User License Agreement (EULA) which most of us don't, you may be in for a few unpleasant surprises. First, the company doesn't make the EULA easily accessible. I had to do some serious searching to find it. You can read it yourself at . I urge you to do so before buying this or any software product.    The EULA has several introductory paragraphs before the legal stuff begins. The heavy reading is divided into 24 sections. Keep in mind that End User License Agreements are meant to protect the company, not you.    Let's start with Section 1, Description of How the magicJack Device and Software Works: It's really not as easy as simply plugging in the device as the ads say. If you have a home security system the device may not work. You may also be out of luck if you have medical monitoring equipment, a fax machine or a satellite TV system. The device may not work even with some modems.    Section 2, Ownership and Risk of Loss of magicJack Device: If you decide you want a refund, you have to wait 45 days, plus you will pay all shipping and handling costs. I've also heard reports that the company charges your credit card in 15 days, but I haven't been able to verify this conclusively.    Section 5, Emergency Calls: Since the services offered by magicJack are not traditional telephone services, the company is under no obligation to offer traditional 911 emergency services, and it doesn't. They offer something called Voluntary 911 Service. If you need to call 911 you will be speaking to an internet operator who may ask you for location or other information before rerouting the call to an actual 911 operator. This could result in fatal delays, so you need to have access to 911 through a traditional landline.	Section 6, Proper Use: The issue of free unlimited use gets fuzzy here. The company states very explicitly that if it thinks you are using the device too often it has the right to terminate your account without notice and without giving any refunds.    Section 10, Privacy Policy: Here is where you find out that your personal information may be transmitted to a third party without your knowledge. You gave permission when you accepted the terms of the EULA.    Section 11, Advertisements: You will receive advertisements through magicJack, and you can't opt out. The process is completely automated so you may get an ad at an inconvenient time and there's nothing you can do about it. Remember, you agreed to this when you accepted the EULA. This is partly your own fault.    Sections 13 and 14, Modification and Termination: If the company decides to call it quits, it can terminate the service either temporarily or permanently without notice, and of course no refunds. You can end the relationship at any time too, but don't expect any money back.    Section 16, No Warranties: This is the only section printed entirely in upper case. I suppose that means the company thinks it's important. The company makes it very clear that it guarantees ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. 911 calls are made at your own risk and the company does not guarantee that the call will be completed.    Section 17, Limitation of Liability: All the company will admit to is that under some special undefined circumstances, they might, just might refund the money you paid for the device plus one year of service. Don't count on it.    We could go on, but I think you get the idea. This column was not written to pick on MagicJack specifically, but the ubiquity of its ads made it a compelling subject. I mainly wish to point out that whenever you install software of any kind, please READ THE END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT first. You may be glad you did.    Any and all communications with the company will be either by email or internet chat. The company does not provide a phone number for customer contact.    Copyright 2009. This article is from the May 2009 issue of the Sarasota PC Monitor, the official monthly publication of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc., P.O. Box 15889, Sarasota, FL 34277-1889. Permission to reprint is granted only to other non-profit computer user groups, provided proper credit is given to the author and our publication. TOGGLE Editor's Note:    There are several other companies which provide long distance service within their monthly billing at no additional cost. These include ComCast and Skype. Comcast treats calls to anywhere in Canada and the United States as local calls. Skype does this also and includes some overseas areas as well. They apparently do this by routing your calls through the Internet to local telephone networks.
Number 313 - June 2009