Sprint Weaves A Mobile Web

July 28, 2008

(2 votes, average: 3.5 out of 5)

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Sprint has announced the launch of a new mobile web portal. Users of the 40+ devices currently supporting “Sprint Web” will have immediate access to the new service. The selling point of Sprint Web is that it is “Adaptive” and displays content based upon your past browsing history. Sprint Mobile Web

We hope that Sprint was paying attention to the negative publicity that Facebook received over its “Beacon” advertising service last year. Users don’t necessarily mind targeted content, but the thought of your service provider tracking you to deliver targeted content (and possibly ads) is a bit scary - Google deals with this balancing act as well - features vs frightening.

Would you be reluctant to let someone use the browser on your phone to search for movie times or the weather if you didn’t know what they might find on your home page? What your home page says about you could potentially be embarrassing for some people. Sprint needs to tread cautiously, to make sure that users are comfortable and that their phones don’t give away too much unintentional information about them.

When in doubt, let the user decide if they want to pick their own content groups for the home page or have Sprint decide for them. That is the only sure fire way to avoid trouble.

New web services are clearly moving toward offering more tailored content. But how much privacy will we need to give away in the process?

Written by Todd · Filed Under Mobile