Gossip

Strange coincidence upsets Web site operator

It seemed no more than a bit of harmless fun - a press-release site published a press release, unchanged, and yet seemed to think this was a review.

The story was a small one - the first i-mode phone to be sold outside Japan, and it ran back in April. Your gossip columnist was struck by the similarity between the official press release, and the review on a mobile web site.

It's a "Superbly designed terminal" reports the 3G world newsletter: "First looks don't deceive: the NEC n21i is all that a state-of-the-art multimedia terminal should be."

Sniffer checked on the NEC site. There, packets betrayed the presence of a press release: "Superbly designed terminal" it says, and continues: "First looks don't deceive: the NEC n21i is all that a state-of-the-art multimedia terminal should be."

A laugh; but at least, 3g world had drawn our attention to the story; so Sniffer gave them the credit, with a link to their site, and a quote of their picture of the phone. In standard Internet style, NewsWireless Net pointed to their picture.

By a process of logic which eludes Sniffer, the guys at 3g world have decided that they can't have people publicising their site, and have "expressed their deep concern that we may be using copyright material." We responded instantly, pointing out that such links are standard Internet etiquette, and suggesting that it would do both our sites a lot more good if we worked together, instead of poring over the text of each story to make sure that "copyright" press release material wasn't reproduced. Response: a huffy silence from 3G world.

Ever happy to oblige, Sniffer is delighted to be able to bring you an official picture from NEC's web site.

We'll do our best not to give free publicity to these bonzos again.