Skip to main content

It's all in the small print

Quite literally, the small print.

I wanted to try and download voicemails from my phone (call me sentimental, but in years to come, I might be happy to still be able to hear my Mum leaving rambling messages about what insane item she's found for me on eBay today), which appears to actually be quite a difficult thing to do. Multiple forums recommended various techniques involving cables, computers, headphones and microphones, but that's all a bit complex for me, and I decided to try one of the free apps that claimed to be able to manage voicemails.

I did the sign-up, email, password etc, but I thought "hey, since this mini-computerabob that I'm carrying everywhere has access to a LOT of information about me and my life...maybe I'd better actually read the terms and conditions that I have to confirm that I agree with?". After all, there's plenty of stories about what can happen if you allow apps or services access to your phone without considering it.

Now, my phone screen is approximately 3 inches by 2 inches, so these images are approximately the same size as when they're viewed on my phone...hands up who thinks anyone could actually read this?





4 pages worth of small print. Very, very small print. As far as I know, I may well be signing up to donate my body to medical science, while still alive.

So...is the chance to save voicemails worth that risk? Do I sign up, and risk being carted off to a medical facility to be used for terrible experiments, when I least expect it?

Or...do I do what everyone has to do these days - just accept it, and hope that it's not malicious? After all, if I don't accept it, I can't use the service, so it's not really much of a choice, is it?
Labels:

Comments

Unknown said…
I use Voicefeed to receive all voicemails as emails automatically. They also arrive on my phone, along with any missed calls and 'no message left' notifications.
29 September 2012 at 18:41
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Relaunching a library service

What do you do when you decide to do what is verging on library-based insanity, and basically scrap your current library service, and relaunch everything - physical layout, LMS, and classification system? In my case, spend a year, planning, developing, preparing….and then a frantic few weeks hauling stock!
The background to this apparent madness is this: when I took on this role I inherited a library using a layout that didn’t seem to make sense, a classification system I wasn’t familiar with, and an LMS that had been in place for 20 years but didn’t seem suited to our needs. As I was new to the library, a major part of the time I had available while settling in during my initial few months was dedicated to exploring how well these things were working, both for users, and library staff. I had the benefit of my colleague also being new to the library, only a few months after me, so together we looked at these issues with fresh eyes.We came to the following conclusions: The physical layou…
Post a Comment
Read more

Impressive shelving technique

I have a new role model: the shelving technique demonstrated between 12 and 18 seconds by the librarian in this Lucozade video is something to aspire to! :D


Post a Comment
Read more

Too close to the problem to see the achievements

Sometimes, you have so much to do, that you can't see what you've actually done. I'm feeling very much that way at the moment, so I thought I'd make a public list for myself of all the work and professional things I've done since taking up my role in mid January. Then maybe I'll feel less like I'm just not very good at anything. It's worth a try. Although for obvious reasons, I can't publicly say much about the baddest/hardest stuff, but...it's in there. Maybe it's not explicit about how hard it's been, but it's there.

So: what have I done?


Service management and development

Replaced someone who ran the library for 21 years, who retired 3 months before I started, and gave me no handover information.Got 6 weeks of company/training on the library from an assistant, who then retired, leaving me as the only person in the organisation who knew anything about how the library actually worked.Done the assistant librarian and librarian job simu…
Post a Comment
Read more