This magic Ain’t Worth Jack

I first heard about the magicJack last September at DigitalLife in New York, and was at first skeptical. Well, I was always skeptical, because the product itself didn’t seem to make much sense. Just how could a device give you free phone service for such a menial fee? Well as it turns out, there is a lot more than meets the eye.

Rob at BoingBoing Gadgets stumbled on the magicJack’s EULA, and it is not pretty. In order to have the device “pay” for itself, you have to agree to forced advertisements, else the device will be useless (as if it isn’t to begin with?). Even better is the fact that once you sign the agreement, you also sign away the ability to sue if the device somehow acts in a way to defraud you.

To make matters even worse, the device will take it upon itself to scan both incoming and outgoing phone numbers in order to deliver relevant advertisements. Need more convincing that this product and its company is worthless? Their web site counter is a piece of JavaScript that auto-updates every second or two. This is the ultimate in crapware… stay away.

It gets sexier. When you access MajicJack’s instant web help page, a bizarre series of “compatibility tests” take place first, reporting lies like “Your MagicJack is functioning properly” even if you don’t have one installed. Even the “look how many people came for a free trial” counter on the homepage is a fake, a javascript applet that increments itself automatically.

Source: BB Gadgets