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Ad Supported Visual Voicemail?!

Codegerm

Codegerm

Android Expert
Today I got a notice on my VVM that an upgrade was available. When I looked at the notification, it stated that it had "ad supported features" like inline playing and forwarding to email. REALLY?! Needless to say I did not accept the upgrade. That kinda ticked me off. Trying to pump ads into my voice-mail, WTH?! :mad:

So my new project is backing up my current VVM and now looking to see how to prevent it from annoying me about an upgrade that I am not going to accept.
 
screenshot2013052320555.png


here is the notification
 
If you go into you account on the boost website, under activity at the bottom is a link to opt out of mobile advertizing and reporting preferences. Make sure to opt out.

Personally, it irritates me they want to track me and send me ads. When they give me unlimited (truly unlimited) data then they can use as much data as they want but until then they better not send me their ad junk.

As far as voice mail... i give everybody my google voice number. Then when they leave a voice mail it will email and text me a text version of the voice mail.
 
I also like to use my google voice number. It is useful with groove IP. Seeing an ad when I go online to check my free Gmail account is one thing, but this is for the Boost number which I pay monthly for. I do not get the text transcribing nor do I want it. I also have no need or want of forwarding to my email account.

VVM benefits the carrier too. It downloads the message to your phone using your phones data connection, allowing the carrier to not have to keep the message on their servers for long.
 
Update: I have found a workaround for this annoyance. the version of the voicemail app I had on my phone was 5.3.3.18. I went back to an older version of the app which is 5.3.0.32. Upon running that version, it shows you the update notification again, but this older version has a check box for not showing me this again. I checked it before I hit the cancel on the upgrade notice, and am now no longer bugged by it. The older version doesn't have the dark background that the one I had before did, but that is no biggie. I downloaded the vtt-sprint.apk which installs like a normal app (no need to manually push it into /system/app).

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1863671&highlight=visual+voicemail
 
Advertising has not been launched on Sprint yet. (it has on Boost) This new client will support it in the future and we are trialing it on some customers. Go ahead and take the new client, if you do not like advertising you will be able to turn it off in the settings.

When it is launched, we will offer premium features in exchange for letting us advertise, but you can say no and have the client work as it always has.
 
No offense dude, but I find that the mere attempt to slip ads into a BASIC function of the phone service I pay for, quite detestable.

The "premium" features aren't all that good, and the text translation is quite inaccurate. It would appear that not enough people paid for the subscription to it, causing this attempt to stuff ads in it.

Being able to disable it in settings or not, I will have no part of it.
 
voicemail guy said:
Advertising has not been launched on Sprint yet. (it has on Boost) This new client will support it in the future and we are trialing it on some customers. Go ahead and take the new client, if you do not like advertising you will be able to turn it off in the settings.

When it is launched, we will offer premium features in exchange for letting us advertise, but you can say no and have the client work as it always has.
Click to expand...

:Mr. Establishment
 
I got the ads off by making changes to Mobile advertising preferences and Display ads under the VVM settings. I can play my messages now without accepting the ads.
 
Like most here, I pay the unlimited mo. fee.

My S2 came with the VVM apk. that is made by Smith Micro.

You can't uninstall it, nor replace it with any other mail app...that I've found anyway.

So; why do I need to see the add from Smith Micro that wants me to give them money every month, when I don't want to do that, nor see the ad.

I'm paying for the service, I bought the phone, is it not mine?

Boost is the problem here it seems. I've written them and Smith M. but no response from either.

Is there anyone that feels the same, or do I have a false view of how much power these companies have over us.
 
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