You, Quim, Ari, Peter, anyone who gets paid by Nokia and is known to this community.

Cool. Now there's more useful information in this 1 sentence than in the boring and unsubstantial mail that opened this thread.

What may be difficult to understand when you're there (right in these hallways and meeting rooms) is how disheartening the silence outside is. Nokia is the master of silence. Nokia hardly ever communicates. This issue was first raised on may 25th, and I'd have expected some sort of public statement within one week. (A public statement could be: "Not that big of a deal."; it needn't be an apology or a promise to change things.) Just anything.

Then we had blog posts, bug reports, private mails to people @nokia... still nothing. Silence.

Knowing that somebody talks about it, that we're being heard (which is what I'd like to read into your lines), is very important. Even if you can't say what you're discussing etc. - just the simple fact that you're discussing, that somebody's still alive in the ivory tower, is good to know. That should have been Nokia's statement here in the community forum in May: "We hear you. We're discussing internally, too."

Saying "I hear you and I know very well what you mean" would be just cool. No need to disclose internals.

First: I have to repeat what Texrat said before. Some Nokians might try a customers hat once in a while.

Other than that, you'd be surprised how often I find myself wearing Nokia's hat. I think everybody working in a big company understands a lot of what might possibly be going on at Nokia's offices. But with MyNokia I really don't understand what it's good for.

Here's my hat, ragnar. Wear it:

I registered at Ovi a while ago, before I got my N900. When I bought the N900, of course I started using Ovi from this device, too. Nokia knows my name, my credit card #, knows which devices I own and use actively (I buy from the store for both devices), has a valid mail address and phone number.

Enter MyNokia. The N900 sends an SMS (including information I don't know). What could you now know that you couldn't have gathered from the whole Ovi-infrastructure?

Talking about win-win: What do I get in return? They promised information about my device. Wrong. I got 2 or three messages since I registered, saying that new software was available. There was no new software. The messages directed me to a website "for further information" which didn't exist but returned a 404-error.

Now what do I do? I search for My Nokia on the web to change my settings there. I'm taken to a site where I can login with my Ovi account. Guess what happens then? Tis site asks me to sign up to My Nokia even though the N900 already registered me there! You, Nokia, have me registered at MyNokia but don't know it when I go there with my existing account! WTF? What kind of "data" do you collect? Can't you match my existing Ovi account with the automatic MyNokia registration? What's it good for then?

I really cannot see the point. Do you want to collect random data? That's probably really close to being illegal in some countries. Do you want users to sign up to your (Ovi) services? That's great, make them do so, but MyNokia will not achieve that. How does a MyNokia SMS make me a paying Ovi Store customer (if I'm not already)? It doesn't. I'd need username, password, a credit card, mail address,...... So what's the point?

Whatever you want to learn about you customers.... make them tell you. Make them fill in all the forms you need and sign up for everything you want them to by offering, say, a basic set of applications for free in return. Like Bounce Evolution and such. Have it all in the main menu (like it is), but only start a download helper application when they're first launched (like you already do) and have the user agree to transmit all the data you need. And sign up to Ovi. And agree to give you their first born.

EDIT: I forgot the important part: Given how MyNokia does not tie the user to any of Nokias online services... How useless it is from a consumer's perspective... How little information it should be able to collect... Is it worth destroying the good, open, "no-kill-switch", "you-own-your-device" image that Maemo/MeeGo could have had as a USP?