Verizon has started enforcing a 365-day lock period on phones purchased through its TracFone division, one week after the Federal Communications Commission waived a requirement that Verizon unlock handsets 60 days after they are activated on its network.

Verizon was previously required to unlock phones automatically after 60 days due to restrictions imposed on its spectrum licenses and merger conditions that helped Verizon obtain approval of its purchase of TracFone. But an update applied today to the TracFone unlocking policy said new phones will be locked for at least a year and that each customer will have to request an unlock instead of getting it automatically.

The "new" TracFone policy is basically a return to the yearlong locking it imposed before Verizon bought the company in 2021. TracFone first agreed to provide unlocking in a 2015 settlement with the Obama-era FCC, which alleged that TracFone failed to comply with a commitment to unlock phones for customers enrolled in the Lifeline subsidy program. TracFone later shortened the locking period from a year to 60 days as a condition of the Verizon merger.

While a locked phone is tied to the network of one carrier, an unlocked phone can be switched to another carrier if the device is compatible with the other carrier's network. But the new TracFone unlocking policy is stringent, requiring customers to pay for a full year of service before they can get a phone unlocked.

"For all cellphones Activated on or after January 20, 2026, the cellphone will be unlocked upon request after 365 days of paid and active service," the policy says. A customer who doesn't maintain an active service plan for the whole 12 months will thus have their unlocking eligibility date delayed.

Besides TracFone, the change applies to prepaid brands Straight Talk, Net10 Wireless, Clearway, Total Wireless, Simple Mobile, SafeLink Wireless, and Walmart Family Mobile. Customers who bought phones before today are still eligible for unlocks after 60 days.

365 days of paid service

As DroidLife points out, the Verizon-owned prepaid brand Visible is also requiring a year of paid service. The Visible policy updated today requires "at least 365 days of paid service" for an unlocking request. "If you stop paying for service, your progress toward the 365-day requirement pauses. It will resume once you reactivate your account and continue until you reach a total of 365 paid days of service," the policy says.

The unlocking policy for Verizon-branded phones has not been updated since May 2025. The policy calls for phones to be unlocked automatically after 60 days of paid service, but it will probably be changed soon because of the FCC waiver.

Once updated, the primary Verizon policy will presumably match the TracFone subsidiary's 365-day locking period, or at least require something longer than 60 days. It's also likely to require customers to request an unlock since the FCC no longer requires Verizon to unlock phones automatically. We contacted Verizon about its plans today and will update this article if it provides a response.

AT&T's policy allows unlocking of phones on postpaid plans after 60 days if the device has been paid in full, or after six months for phones on prepaid plans. T-Mobile's policy allows phones on postpaid plans to be unlocked after 40 days if the device has been paid in full, or after 365 days for phones on prepaid plans.

Verizon and FCC Chairman Brendan Carr have justified longer locking periods as a method of deterring fraud. When approving Verizon's waiver request, the Carr FCC said the Verizon rule “required one wireless carrier to unlock their handsets well earlier than standard industry practice, thus creating an incentive for bad actors to steal those handsets for purposes of carrying out fraud and other illegal acts.”

Consumer advocacy groups disputed the argument, telling the FCC that “Verizon offers no specific evidence that a longer lock period would have prevented the fraudulent acquisition of the devices it identifies,” and that Verizon is capable of detecting and responding to fraud within 60 days of a phone's activation. Consumers and small carriers will be hurt by the decision, the groups told the FCC, saying that automatic unlocking "facilitates the resale and reuse of mobile devices, reduces e-waste, and enables low-cost carriers and MVNOs to compete on a more level playing field."

While the Biden-era FCC's leadership criticized yearlong locking periods and proposed a 60-day unlocking requirement for all carriers, the Trump FCC appears likely to write a new industry-wide standard that would be welcomed by large mobile carriers. The FCC rejected a request to limit Verizon's locking period to 180 days and said the Verizon waiver will stay in effect until the agency “decides on an appropriate industry-wide approach for the unlocking of handsets.”

Read full article

Comments

TCL is taking majority ownership of Sony’s Bravia series of TVs, the two companies announced today.

The two firms said they have signed a memorandum of understanding and aim to sign binding agreements by the end of March. Pending “relevant regulatory approvals and other conditions,” the joint venture is expected to launch in April 2027.

Under a new joint venture, Huizhou, China-headquartered TCL will own 51 percent of Tokyo, Japan-headquartered Sony’s “home entertainment business,” and Sony will own 49 percent, per an announcement today, adding:

The joint venture will operate globally, handling the full process from product development and design to manufacturing, sales, logistics, and customer service for products including televisions and home audio equipment.

The joint venture will continue to release TVs and home audio gadgets under the “Sony Bravia” branding; however, the TVs will rely on TCL display technology. The joint announcement suggested focuses on bigger TVs, higher-resolution displays, and “smart features."

The news comes as the TV industry has struggled with decreasing margins and has become more competitive. Meanwhile, devices have become cheaper, and people are buying new TVs less frequently. Competition between Chinese companies, like TCL and Hisense, and South Korean firms, like LG and Samsung, has heated up, with Chinese companies making increasingly competitive budget and mid-range-priced TVs, and the South Korean government reportedly pushing local TV firms to work together. Numerous Japanese companies, including Toshiba and Sharp, have already exited or reduced their TV businesses.

The upcoming joint venture also comes as Sony has focused less on electronics in recent years. For example, it stopped making its Vaio PCs in 2014 and quit Blu-rays last year. Meanwhile, it has been focusing on intellectual property, like anime and movies, as Bloomberg noted. The joint venture should allow Sony to focus on its more lucrative businesses and allow TCL to gain an advantage by leveraging Sony’s more high-end Bravia devices and brand.

Read full article

Comments

Woe Industries, the same team behind the excellent Souls typing game, have a new release out this week, called You Have Billions Invested In Generative AI.

It's a short text adventure where you, a Silicon Valley Guy, have billions of dollars invested in generative AI. Which is putting you in regular contact with a cast of characters who, uh, just need to talk to you. Sometimes to warn you, other times to sign business deals that are totally cool and normal.

Whichever response you choose when prompted throughout these conversations, I'm sure everything is gonna turn out just fine.

Elon Musk's xAI recently weakened content guard rails for image generation in the Grok AI bot. This led to a new spate of non-consensual sexual imagery on X, much of it aimed at silencing women on the platform. This, along with the creation of sexualized images of children in the more compliant Grok, has led regulators to begin investigating xAI. In the meantime, Google has rules in place for exactly this eventuality—it's just not enforcing them.

It really could not be more clear from Google's publicly available policies that Grok should have been banned yesterday. And yet, it remains in the Play Store. Not only that—it enjoys a T for Teen rating, one notch below the M-rated X app. Apple also still offers the Grok app on its platform, but its rules actually leave more wiggle room.

App content restrictions at Apple and Google have evolved in very different ways. From the start, Apple has been prone to removing apps on a whim, so developers have come to expect that Apple's guidelines may not mention every possible eventuality. As Google has shifted from a laissez-faire attitude to more hard-nosed control of the Play Store, it has progressively piled on clarifications in the content policy. As a result, Google's rules are spelled out in no uncertain terms, and Grok runs afoul of them.

Google has a dedicated support page that explains how to interpret its "Inappropriate Content" policy for the Play Store. Like Apple, the rules begin with a ban on apps that contain or promote sexual content including, but not limited to, pornography. That's where Apple stops, but Google goes on to list more types of content and experiences that it considers against the rules.

"We don’t allow apps that contain or promote content associated with sexually predatory behavior, or distribute non-consensual sexual content," the Play Store policy reads (emphasis ours). So the policy is taking aim at apps like Grok, but this line on its own could be read as focused on apps featuring "real" sexual content. However, Google is very thorough and has helpfully explained that this rule covers AI.

The detailed policy includes examples of content that violate this rule, which include much of what you'd expect—nothing lewd or profane, no escort services, and no illegal sexual themes. After a spate of rudimentary "nudify" apps in 2020 and 2021, Google added language to this page clarifying that "apps that claim to undress people" are not allowed in Google Play. In 2023, as the AI boom got underway, Google added another line to note that it also would remove apps that contained "non-consensual sexual content created via deepfake or similar technology."

Sound like any apps you know?

The archetype of a bannable app, approved for teens

Taken together, Google's description of bannable apps describes Grok's app to a tee. Google made these additions as new threats became apparent, knowing that developers would try to publish AI-undressing apps in the Play Store. The company did not, apparently, think the world's richest person would be the one pushing digital humiliation tools on its platform. And Google's response to this situation so far has been to do nothing.

The backlash to xAI's loosened restrictions prompted the company to limit access to image editing slightly. You can no longer edit images on X without paying for a premium plan. However, the Grok app does not have that limitation. Anyone who downloads Grok can use it to create non-consensual sexual content.

Since the app is cleared for teens, even devices with parental controls enabled will permit 13- to 17-year-olds to download Grok. There is no paywall, and you don't even have to log in before editing your first image. The app does ask the user to confirm their birth year, but teenagers would never lie about that, right?

This is not xAI's first problem with non-consensual sexual content. Last year, the AI was widely used to create fake Taylor Swift nudes. However, in that case, users were simply prompting the bot with the singer's name—Grok can create entirely new images of famous people because the training data includes real images of them. Grok's newer ability to "edit" images of people is a different and more insidious feature because it can turn anyone into an AI plaything.

Ars has reached out to Google to ask why Grok has not been removed and why it has retained a Teen rating. The company has declined to make a statement at this time. So we're left with a policy that explicitly bans apps like Grok, but Google is taking no action to enforce those policies, allowing impressionable teenagers and unsavory weirdos to use it to sexualize real people.

Read full article

Comments

“Kristi Noem’s an idiot, right? Like, she went on TV before any of the facts were in. She made up this story on TV about ICE agents trying to dig their truck out of the snow or something, which was clearly false. Like she didn’t even realize that there was gonna be video of what happened when she went up and gave a false story.”

— Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-RI), quoted by Mediaite.