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  • 2016-03-02 (xsd:date)
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  • Cellular Companies Charging for Emojis? (en)
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  • In early 2016, rumors swirled that some mobile phone users in the United Kingdom were being charged for the use of emojis. A commonly cited article was a February 2015 Daily Mail piece about a British woman who was purportedly charged £1,200 for one month's use of emoticons: Details, as usual, rapidly fell away on social media. Many users warned friends about new emoji charges, but didn't specify whether that applied to users outside the UK, under which circumstances such charges could be incurred, or that the issue wasn't new as in 2016: The two service providers most commonly named in warnings were the UK's EE and O2, although several British mobile phone companies fielded questions on Twitter: Provider EE linked to a customer care page devoted to the emoji charge problem, explaining why some users were racking up higher-than-expected bills due to emoticon use: In February 2015, The Guardian contacted several providers as well as device manufacturers. Samsung indicated that phones manufactured before April 2014 might automatically convert emojis to images, but claimed that affected devices displayed a warning message: The Guardian reported in January 2016 that group messages appeared to exacerbate the problem, and that the providers maintained that the extra charges were due to device settings (over which they had no control): EE also advised customers that the emoji charge issue was out of their hands: Before the issue caused alarm in 2015 and 2016, a December 2014 post on the web site MoneySavingExpert.com reported similar findings about charges incurred under specific circumstances: The report advised users to turn off MMS capabilities to avoid emoji charges, and warned that users who had downloaded a special 'emoji keyboard' on any Android or Apple handset could also be hit. By February 2016, the issue appeared to be restricted mostly to the realm of rumors and social media. Complaints about emoji charges began circulating in 2014, and reports about the £1,200 bill dated back to February 2015. Few users in the UK stood to be hit with more charges, and no American users reported them. Finally, the issue appeared limited to older handsets, group messaging, and non-native emoji keyboards. Concerned users were advised to review their service providers' help pages about avoiding emoji-related charges. (en)
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