So what? Let them store track me. I created an account with bogus user and pass, and a disposable address, like I always do. Then I told them I have an N900 and that was it. They keep bugging me to confirm my e-mail and insert my phone number, I did none of those, nor do I intend to.

Note the legal agility of the Nokian lawyer: The site pops up an error in red your number is bogus/missing/etc, but it DOES save your settings ans lets you use it. Just because you assumed errors are non-continuable doesn't mean they do illegal things. You typed you number/mail/whatever there. You type it, you lose it.

When they require phone number to download, I'll be in the front of the revolution, while using a disposable SIM. I have a few lying around. And if they keep sending messages without asking so they get my real number, I'll find a way to bone them.

We can all meet somewhere and we rotate sims with each other. That way, all IMEIs will be associated with all SIM numbers. Flood them with garbage. I'll use every SIM I can get my hands on so they have 20 numbers from me.

This isn't the first time a company refused to delete my data. To this day, I'm only one event away from a perfect record.

I wonder how much garbage can be generated once I know what is being sent.

I haven't upgraded to PR1.2 yet, and I won't be until I can be assured it will not be telling Nokia my phone number (and what else is in the message -- anyone deciphered it yet?).

So, a package which installs an early running startup script which creates the /home/user/.cherry_state file at boot time if it doesn't exist, and which can be installed before installing PR1.2, should be a fix?

Of course, that only works for OTA upgrades. For reflashes is it good enough to create the cherry_state file before inserting the SIM card or does it have to be before the first boot?

Has anyone checked whether the installation scripts in the PR1.2 packages (I'm talking OTA here) remove the .cherry_state file if it exists?

Sounds to me like something it "should" do if they're serious about capturing info from everyone.

I don't know about the rest of PR1.2, but there are no preinst or postinst (or prerm, postrm) scripts in the cherry package itself, which is where I would expect to see them.

By doing it automatically, Nokia are also signing up people to MyNokia that are not legally permitted to be signed up to the service...

From the MyNokia FAQ:
****
Question 7: Can I join My Nokia if I am under 13?

Answer: You need to be of a certain age limit (which differs from country to country) to register for "My Nokia". The following are the age limits for the respective countries:

* Australia - 13 years old
****

There's no age check on the automatic sign-up.

From the MyNokia Terms of Service:
****
Eligibility for the Service(s) No person under the age of 18 or who otherwise is a minor under his/her local legislation (even if 18 or older) is eligible to use and/or register as a User of the Service(s). In the event that you are of the age of 18 but still a minor in your country, you will need to obtain consent from your parent(s) or other legal guardian(s) for using and/or registering as a User of the Service(s).
****

There are no checks at all to verify whether it is actually "legal" for the owner of the N900 to be signed up to their service.

I got the N900 on the weekend, applied the update before installing any other software, and immediately received an SMS back from Nokia. Until I saw this thread, I didn't realise that they'd SENT an SMS from MY phone at MY cost to automatically sign me up for the MyNokia service. I was never presented with a prompt, notification or option for whether I wanted this additional "free" service.

I've since confirmed that I have been billed for the SMS that was auto-sent to Nokia, and I'm not at all happy about it - more about the principle than actual cost. If they send one SMS from MY phone at MY cost, how many others will they send? A new one with each update? A "touch bases" one each month? How will I know when the SMS is not listed? How can I trust that I won't get a phone bill one month with tons of SMS's sent from my phone that I didn't authorize or send myself?

Given a choice, I may well have signed up to MyNokia via their website (at no cost to me) after reading terms/etc and deciding whether I wanted to be notified of updates via SMS (the package manager can notify me - I don't really need SMS notifications!). I would never have sent them an SMS to subscribe. I have never previously subscribed to anything by SMS, and will never willingly subscribe to anything via SMS.

The decision made by Nokia to auto-subscribe N900 owners via a user-paid SMS stinks. It's a clear violation of privacy, a denial of consumer rights (being silently auto-subscribed at a cost to the user to an optional service while providing NO ability to refuse the subscription before the user is charged), and for some of the users being subscribed it's downright illegal to have subscribed them at all - even according to Nokia's own EULA.

I dumped that email in my spam and have not got it since, also did not find anywhere where it resembles something like "Unsubscribe".

hey what sms? i never had any such incident having the latest PR1.2 middle east !! MY Nokia right i dont seem to have the icon too

Probably Nokia doesn't have that "service" activated on your location...
You're lucky!

I got my first text off them today, from this so called service I was conned into.

It was great, it says "New software is available for my N900."

Given my "Ovi store game" gave me the same fun when I received their My Nokia email telling me all the great things added to the Ovi store. (Which incidentally was Anno for symbian.)

I rushed over to the website. www.nokia.co.uk/softwareupdate. To see what I get for them stealing details I didn't want to give.

The 'software update' is PR1.2. So they told me using a service that was installed with 1.2 that 1.2 existed.

Talk about typical Nokia.

BTW, My Ovi store game is to go to the ovi store via a web browser, look at all the great apps and THEN apply the phone to be N900, filtering the items. You can with count just how long it takes to remove absolutely all the decent apps. Or you can have guesses with yourself or a friend at how many icons will disappear, 98%, 99% All of them? It's great fun.
/sarcasm.

I've been thinking for a couple of days that we should create a wiki page about this issue, but I haven't got around to doing so myself. I think it should cover the background to the issue and how to avoid it before updating to PR1.2.

Are any phones sold yet which are already on PR1.2?