The chocolate factory's latest service, Google Voice, expressly forbids using the service for voice mail - despite that being one of the most promoted features of the service.

Google Voice not only records voice-mail messages, but also transcribes those messages into text for archiving, and to allow easy scanning for targeted advertising. This prompted Andy Munarriz, CEO of competing voice-mail service HulloMail, to read through the terms and conditions of the service to see how long they hang on to transcribed messages. But what he discovered was a clause expressly forbidding any use of voice mail at all:

"Subscriber agrees not to … Use the Service in connection with chain letters, junk email, voice mail, faxes, spamming or any duplicative or unsolicited messages"

The terms and conditions are missing at the moment, presumably being updated, but thanks to the Google cache we can still see the document that, no-doubt, all Google Voice users read in its entirety, before ensuring that anyone calling refrained from leaving messages that could put them in breach. ®

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