Dale Dougherty

ringtone and then enrolls anyone who asks for it in

a service costing $5.99 a month. They advertise on

MTV, Nickelodeon, and the Cartoon Network, also

promising a free ringtone if you send them a text

message. What they don’t advertise is that they

automatically sign you up for their costly service.

Another infuriated father set up a webpage

( www.sleaze-mobile.com) to rant about what hap-

pened once he noticed that his 11-year-old daughter

had been duped into a $3.99-a-week ringtone ser-

vice. His screenshots show how a teen could easily

think she is saying yes to a free download, since the

message saying that she is actually signing up for

the service is on a later screen.

A T THE WEB 2.0 CONFERENCE, A PANEL Why would anyone pay more for a 30-second of teens talked about their habits and ringtone than for a song on i Tunes? One answer

attitudes for a wide range of gadgets and is that teens see ringtones as personalizing their

services. All of them said they almost never pay for phones while music downloads are just pure

digital music, and seemed incredulous that anyone entertainment. Isn’t this a terribly shoddy view

would. Then the moderator asked them about of personalization?

cellphones. One of the teens confessed that he Do you personalize your phone by signing up for

spent $50 a month on ringtones. FIFTY DOLLARS A a $5.99 monthly plan to download “I’m N Luv (Wit

MONTH! A red light on my maker radar went off. A Stripper)” by T-Pain, the number one ringtone

Shouldn’t people make their own ringtones, not on Jamster today? Or by downloading Beyoncé’s

buy them? They already own the music. Don’t they “Check On It” from Cingular’s Media Mall for $2.49,

know how to get it on their cellphones? where you can’t get to the song without seeing

The business press is happy to repeat the phrase, promos to “Idolize My Phone” by downloading “Yo

“the blah-blah billion-dollar ringtone market Dawg” and other “famous and fun sayings” from

worldwide” (the number they say is $4 billion, but American Idol?

when they use big, unsubstantiated numbers so And why do teens buy so many ringtones?

freely, what I hear is “blah-blah”). This means lots of Apparently, teens assign a distinctive ringtone to

people are making money on ringtones, and they do each friend. The more friends, the more ringtones you

so mostly by pickpocketing teens and their parents. buy. Or is it the more ringtones you buy, the more

Imagine if websites could automatically charge friends you have? It’s a sign of your social network.

your ISP for activities that your children engage in Of course, DIY ringtones are the best option for

online. Ringtone vendors, which include carriers, true personalization, but don’t expect to find good

phone manufacturers, and third-party vendors, are information in your phone’s manual or on your

taking advantage of the automatic billing relation- carrier’s website. They don’t want you to know how.

ship behind every cellphone. Increasingly, the game You can own your own ringtones, and we’ll do

is to get teens to initiate recurring monthly fees hid- our best on makezine.com to cover the tools and

den from parents in a large, complicated phone bill. techniques for making them on your own.

One San Diego parent has brought a class action

suit against Jamster, charging fraud and false