Updated: Rogers has been in touch, through the kind offices of Tod Maffin and their corporate communications director, Liz Hamilton. Apparently the staff I spoke to were mistaken; there is a phone replacement program that applies to the iPhone. That program allows you to replace a lost or stolen phone at retail cost, provided you meet certain conditions (which I do). With the iPhone 3G, though, that full retail cost is $850. So I’ll limp along for a while with an older smart phone I’ve been able to scavenge. Thanks, Liz, and especially you, Tod.

Congratulations on that new iPhone you just got. Now, you’ll want a nice case to protect it… and probably that cool Bluetooth headset they sell…

…Oh. And a pair of handcuffs, to chain your iPhone to your person at all times.

Because – as Rogers probably forgot to tell you when you plunked down your money – there’s effectively no way to replace a lost or stolen iPhone. (Actually, there is: see above.)

That’s unless you’re willing to buy a new phone and a new data plan, change your phone number… and fork over $400 to cancel your old data plan. So say Rogers’ customer service people.

Sadly, I’m able to attest to this first-hand. On Friday night, we took a family trip to the Twilight Drive-In in Aldergrove, just outside Vancouver. At one point during the show I hopped out to re-settle my toddler in the backseat of our car.  And that was the last I saw of my iPhone – whether someone grabbed it from the roof of our car, or the seat, or the ground, it vanished.

Whoever has it has yet to follow up, return the phone, or answer any of our many calls. (If you’re still out there, please email me: rob at robcottingham dot ca – there’s a cash reward for the phone’s safe return.)

By Monday I’d given up hope of getting the phone back, and called Rogers to find out about getting a replacement. The short answer: no.

The longer answer: if I really want to do it, I’ll have to cancel my current account, lose my current phone number, pay a $400 cancellation penalty for my old data plan, and then pay $299 for the new phone.

Rogers’ customer relations person told me they have to levy that cancellation charge because they’re subsidizing the cost of the iPhone in order to get data subscribers. But since they aren’t about to tell you or me what they pay per iPhone, it’s impossible to tell whether that’s true, and if it is, if the penalty is reasonable.

(In fairness to Rogers, they’ve offered to let me use my current $30/month data plan and sell me a different phone. But there’s a reason I bought the iPhone instead of, say, a Blackberry; as a Mac user, it’s infinitely more usable for me than any other smart phone out there.)

Here’s the thing, Rogers. If you’re going to make it pretty much impossible for people to replace a lost iPhone without paying a stiff penalty and losing their phone number… isn’t that the sort of thing you ought to tell people before they sign on the dotted line?

• Take Back Labor Day – Write about Unions & Workers on Labor Day 2008
  There's a U.S. campaign to try to reclaim the meaning of labour day as a celebration of working people and unions – and as part of it, they're holding a blogging carnival on Sept. 1. Count me in!
  (tags: blogging unions labor_day usa labor labour politics campaign nptech social_media)

A more complete blog post will follow about the incident and its aftermath…

…but if you happen to have stumbled across an iPhone at the Twilight Drive-In after Get Smart (fun movie, somewhat true to the original, surprisingly fewer laughs than expected; all told, probably not worth the $299 cost of an iPhone), then I’d love to hear from you. There’s a cash reward involved for the phone’s safe return.

Thanks!

• Big Contrarian: Tacky.
  An entertaining, compelling post arguing forcefully that writing blog posts as pure link-bait is crass and anti-social. “Write well, write often, and write with passion. It seems if you can manage that, you’ll find an audience.”
  (tags: writing blogs blogging funny advice)

• NewsCloud Newsroom Module | groups.drupal.org
  Great project from my friend Jeff Reifman: a cool way to expand the cloud (sorry!) of people contributing to NewsCloud, while extending the functionality of your Drupal site. It’s aiming for a Knight Foundation grant, and could use your support!
  (tags: drupal newscloud module knightfoundation grant)

Over on Social Signal, I’ve blogged about the Quebec chief electoral officer’s intention to start applying election spending rules to the web (CBC story here.) Here’s the upshot, but if this kind of thing interests you, I hope you’ll feel free to comment on the post:

The ability to reach large audiences has traditionally skewed toward the wealthy and powerful – but social media is eroding that. With audience comes influence… and the interest of regulators. And if the parade of enthusiastic amateurs who are creating so much of social media are unprepared for that interest, well, regulators (and especially their legal environment) are at least as unprepared for dealing with social media.

The CBC reports that Quebec's chief electoral officer is studying new rules on "cybercampaigning":

As the internet plays an increasingly important role in political campaigns and elections, rules and laws need to evolve in order to keep the playing field level, said Quebec elections director Marcel Blanchet.

The province's election office is studying how the internet has changed campaigning and electioneering, and will come up with recommendations to modernize current laws, Blanchet told the Canadian Press.

(The original story by La Presse Canadienne is here. By the way, the first new rule should be to ban the term "cybercampaigning". But I digress.)

That's one mighty angry hornets' nest Blanchet is poking, and I'll be surprised if the comments on that CBC story don't rapidly fill up with cries of outrage, echoed in the blogosphere. Let me try to channel a few of them in anticipation: "Quel n00b! You can't regulate the Internets!" "Yet another self-important bureaucrat who doesn't get it." "It's censorship! Soon you'll have to register your blog with the government!"

Admittedly, election officials have sometimes been more than a little hamfisted in their initial efforts to come to grips with the web. (That "register your blog" thing isn't as wacky as it might seem, given the experience in B.C.) But that doesn't mean there's no role for oversight and even regulation when it comes to digital campaigning.

For instance, you could make a very strong case for rules that require a campaign to clearly identify any video material they produce as fodder for a supporter-created-media push. Or a prohibition on phony grassroots blogs, purporting to be written by ordinary voters while being underwritten by a campaign. Or a requirement that anyone being paid by a campaign to blog on their behalf to disclose that fact clearly and prominently.

But how about when third parties with deep pockets jump into the pay-per-post arena? Or crank out slick video clips – either as standalone material or as mashup bait? Suppose it's not overtly in support of a particular party or candidate, but advocates a policy stance clearly associated with them? Recent legislation sharply limits that kind of spending in many Canadian jurisdictions when it comes to traditional advertising; it's not a big leap to apply those caps to the online realm.

Then you come to individual bloggers, especially those with significant audiences. We're fond of thinking of blogging as little different from talking to your neighbour over the fence, or writing a letter to the editor. But if you've put, say, Google Ads on your blog, you're in a sense saying that you have an audience whose attention has a tangible value – and that you're willing to market that attention. So if you direct that attention to the promotion of a candidate or party, are you making a donation in kind?

Does this feel like the counting of so many angels on the heads of so many pins? Maybe. But there are real issues underlying these questions... and a real reason for election spending restrictions. Wealth and power tend to walk hand-in-hand; limiting the influence of money helps to avoid magnifying the concentration of political power in the hands of the wealthy.

The ability to reach large audiences has traditionally skewed toward the wealthy and powerful - but social media is eroding that. With audience comes influence... and the interest of regulators. And if the parade of enthusiastic amateurs who are creating so much of social media are unprepared for that interest, well, regulators (and especially their legal environment) are at least as unprepared for dealing with social media.

• beta.NFB.ca – Watch quality Canadian Documentary, Animation and Fiction
  The NFB now lets you watch a slew of documentaries, animated flicks and dramas online – free. Way cool! (h/t HughMcGuire.net)
  (tags: film free canada video nfb animation documentary streaming)