Which may be little different than “peed on.” AT&T said it will buy T-Mobile from Deutsche Telekom. The $39 billion cash-and-stock deal would make T the largest cellphone company in the U.S.

I don’t much care. I went back to the dark side last month.

In the interest of full disclosure, I do hold AT&T and Verizon Wireless stock, some of which I inherited and some I bought myself.

Despite that, I was a semi-loyal T-Mobiley customer ever since the lovely Layla sold me a RAZR with a promise of a $50 rebate at a home show a couple-three years ago. See, AT&T had no presence in Vermont (or many, many, many other places) and I had had bad experiences with Verizon.

Of course, I’ve had bad experiences with T-Mobiley, too, starting with the fact that they charged me twice for the RAZR and ending with them trying to charge me twice for my last month of service.

That hasn’t been the only issue.

Both AT&T and T-Mobile use “GSM” to broadcast your conversation. That’s good for the merger. So does Canada’s Rogers Wireless. That’s not. In fact, the Global System for Mobile Communications is the world’s most popular standard for mobile telephone systems with about 80% of the global market. Subscribers on GSM-based networks can use their phones pretty much anywhere in the world, including Canada. For a slight additional roaming fee.

Up here next to the longest unprotected border in the world, T-Mobiley and AT&T users routinely find themselves roaming onto Rogers. That Canadian service often overruns the weaker T-Mobile or Cell-One signal in North Puffin. I often did the cellphone dance in the driveway here because one can’t make cell calls on that service from inside the house. And the dance was sometimes with an alien.

The first time that happened, T-Mobile charged me International fees. I protested. They showed me how to set the phone to select only the specific local carrier and gave me a refund.

The second time it happened, T-Mobile charged me International fees. I protested. I told them I had already set the phone to select only the specific local carrier. They shrugged.

The third time it happened, I knew not to make a call. I still dope-slapped them. I told them I had already set the phone to select only the specific local carrier. They shrugged.

After that, I stopped trying to make calls from my driveway.

T-Mobile recently started getting smart when it detected my RAZR was saying “eh?” to the Canadian towers. They sent me text messages (on the International roaming rates) to tell me I might incur extra charges.

Uh huh. Verizon uses CDMA, a different standard for mobile telephone systems. I haven’t seen the Rogers towers on my cell display since I switched. And I can make calls from inside the house now.

“AT&T is already a giant in the wireless marketplace, where customers routinely complain about hidden charges and other anticonsumer practices,” Parul P. Desai, policy counsel for Consumers Union, told the NY Times. “From a consumer’s perspective, it’s difficult to come up with any justification or benefits from letting AT&T swallow up one of its few major competitors.”

For the record, T-Mobile and AT&T aren’t the only ones with what we’ll call “billing issues.” Regular readers may recall that I needed a phone timer to record my Verizon landline calls because their local usage bills never once came within 10% of the total shown in the log. Not once. My previous experience with Verizon Wireless was exactly the same.

From this consumer’s perspective, I don’t expect to see much change. Prices will go up. Customer service will go down. But hey! You T-Mobiley folks will get the iPhone!

I am not a lawyer. Nor do I play one on TV. On the other hand, I am uniquely qualified to offer this legal advice because I wrote a rental contract while in college that the landlord’s lawyer could not break. Sam the Landlord learned from that experience (he never signed a contract again that his own lawyer hadn’t written) and I learned how much fun teaching can be.

[Editor’s Note: gekko and I are following in the footsteps of 60 Minutes’ Shana Alexander and James Kilpatrick in paired blog articles. After reading this article, please go read title for the counterpoint argument.]

Over on the other blog, gekko was spurred by a Safari program called Reader.

Reader is really neat. It strips the page of all the advertisements, sidebars, and inconsequential stuff, and pops up just the text in a translucent overlay. That scares the advertisers who believe they have a contract with the viewers, readers, or users on the site; seeing all the ads is the price they charge us to see the content.

gekko thinks the contract is not between us readers and the fodder provider. The contract, she says, is only between the content provider and the advertiser.

Contract is an important legal term. A contract is actually “just” an agreement between thee and me to trade something I have for something you have. To be valid, the contract must be (1) enforceable by law and (2) equitable.

Trade? That sounds like business and it is. I might have a book you want. You might have a dollar I want. We can contract to trade my book for your dollar and both walk away happy. Even if our contract is no more than this conversation:

“Hey, you got that book?”

“Yup, Cost you a buck.”

That fulfills the basis for a legal contract.

<pedantic mode> Both of us must be old enough and not impaired to buy or sell that book and the contract must be neither trifling, indeterminate, impossible, or illegal.

As long as the good or service we trade is legal, our oral agreement can constitute a binding legal contract. In practical terms, written contracts are more enforceable because they list all the terms we decided on at the time we made the agreement.

Enforceable means that we each promise to do something for the other guy and that the other guy has specific legal remedies if we breach that promise. A “compensatory remedy” means the Sheriff will make me pay what I said I would and maybe more besides. An “equitable remedy” usually means the Sheriff will stand over me to make sure I perform what I agreed to do and reneged on.

Equitable means fair to both parties. A court would accept as equitable the sale of a used copy of Pocket Shakespear for a buck — both parties benefit more-or-less equally. A court ought not accept as equitable the sale of an original signed manuscript of Macbeth for a buck — here the seller takes it in the ear. </pedantic mode>

Back to the Safari Reader.

Reuters reports that “the Internet is [now] by far the most popular source of information and the preferred choice for news ahead of television, newspapers and radio, according to a new poll in the United States.”

There are two contracts in play. In the first, the advertiser contracts with the Internet content provider (the fodder we want to read) to place the ads and other links on the content page so the viewer/user will see them. gekko contends that’s The One. In the second, the viewer/user agrees to view the ads and other links on the page in order to see the fodder we want to read. I maintain that’s The Other One.

In many ways, this is exactly the same model we have used for “free” radio and television broadcasts since 1920 when KDKA went on the air in Pittsburgh.

gekko believes the second contract does not exist, partly because we the viewer/user never agreed to it.

<pedantic mode> An implicit contract (A.K.A. an “implied-in-fact contract”) is one agreed by our conduct, rather than by the words we say. The U.S. Supreme Court defines it as an agreement “founded upon a meeting of minds, which, although not embodied in an express contract, is inferred, as a fact, from conduct of the parties showing, in the light of the surrounding circumstances, their tacit understanding.” </pedantic mode>

So. Does watching American Idol on Fox or reading the New York Times online mean we agree to watch or read the commercials that support it?

Yes.

TANSTAAFL (There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch). The writers and publishers of the information we absorb so easily offer it in exactly the same way I sold you the book and for exactly the same reason you go to work each day. Paying the writer is at least as important as paying your mechanic to tighten the lug nuts when he changes a tire on your car.

I traded the book for a buck. You trade your hours at desk or workbench for, I hope, more than a buck. You may have no written contract with your employer but your boss offered you the position, salary, and appropriate working conditions in return for your appearance on time and performance of the assigned duties. That’s an implicit contract.

VCRs, DVRs, other recording devices, and now Safari’s Reader allow us to breach that contract with the broadcaster or website. The fact that we can breach the contract does not mean we should breach the contract any more than we should rob the gas station down the street just because the President did.

The contract hinges on enforceability but in this day of a Democratic President and Congress ignoring the law or changing it to fit their whims, I would not be a bit surprised to find the Library police reassigned to ad watch duty.

[Editor’s Note: gekko and I have written paired blog articles. After reading this piece, please go read title for the counterpoint argument.]

I have no advertising on this page, so there is no implicit contract that you, dear reader, will pay for these words. OTOH, donations via the Tip Jar are always welcome.