A week ago, JaJah launched its new one-click web telephony solution. If you have not read the initial coverage about it, the new JaJah offering is targeted at all those who, while having a web connection, are interested in making long-distance telephone calls at the lowest rates and with the maximum ease of use possible.

JaJah Web comes to the rescue.

One one screen, you can input your phone number and the one of the person you want to call anywhere in the world, and after a second your telephone starts ringing before the connection with your buddy is completed. Everything happens while using some of the lowest VoIP rates available today.

The magic (no magic at all indeed as this nothing more than a simple SIP exchange - as Stuart Henshall correctly points out) happens by providing VoIP access to everyone in a way that is as easy and transparent as it can be. Jajah users don't even know they are using VoIP outside of the significant savings that they will make on their calls.

But the poit is another one.

Some blogs and tech sites adventurously claimed that the new JaJah could have been classified as "spyware" as it tracked and monitored users activity and it shared private user information with other users.

You can read these claims and attacks to JaJah on ExtremeVoIP and ZDNet Blog on VoIP.

Since I have no particular interest or advantage in defending JaJah position, and since I have spontaneously supported JaJah new and innovative products in the past I felt compelled to give a call to JaJah's top management to find out in first-person whether these accusations about spyware and tracking user information had some foundations or not.

Here is my call with JaJah CTO Daniel Mattes, completed a few minutes ago to find out more about these issues and where the company (Jajah) really stands.

Download .mp3 (2.4 MB - duration: 10') audio recording.
Interview with Daniel Mattes CTO of JaJah clarifying spyware and privacy claims against the newly launched JaJah web one-click telephony service which provides immediate access to VoIP for everyone.

Interview with Daniel Mattes of Jajah
Robin Good: Hello everyone, here is Robin Good live in Rome, Italy, and I have called up Daniel Mattes (and Daniel, help me with the pronunciation of your last name, I'm not sure it is the correct one) who is one of the key persons behind JaJah Web - the newly launched, all-web-based, one-click telephony tool, because there is some hot stuff going on, and I wanted to check out directly with him what exactly is going on. Good evening to you Daniel.
Daniel Mattes: Good evening back to you. Nice to hear you.

RG: Where are you right now? Are you in Vienna?
Daniel Mattes: Yeah, right now I'm sitting in Vienna. It's pretty cold here, we have -5 degrees, but anyhow, I have to work, so it's OK.

RG: Five degrees is nothing, -5. Also in Rome here it's pretty cool today, but it's a wonderful blue-sky weather, and it keeps you awake certainly. So, you have come out last week. You launched JaJah Web. For everybody who was sleeping during last week or on vacation, can you remind us what JaJah Web is all about?
Daniel Mattes: Yeah, it's quite easy. We decided to launch a solution where everyone, really everyone, can use Voice-over-IP without installation, without a handset, without using some special equipment, by simply typing in two telephone numbers, and they will be connected over our system.

RG: So, basically you go to your jajah.com web page, and you find basically two fields, one for your phone number, and the other box for the phone number for the person you are trying to call. You fill in those two boxes, you click 'call', your telephone is going to ring (or your mobile), and the other person as well, and you're going to connect.

And the beautiful thing is that you are going to pay very, very low rates to do this very simple operation from any web-connected device you have. How much less can one save by using this method versus the traditional one, Daniel?
Daniel Mattes: Well, it depends on the tariff plan the customer has, but for example, for the Austrian people, they usually pay between one and two Euros for a call to the United States.

With our system you pay simply two cents.

RG: Well, that's quite a savings right there. But the reason we got together today with Daniel is because a number of sites, a few blogs, and a few prominent tech reporter sites, put out the information right after the launch of JaJah, that this product lets somewhere think that there may be ways in which the JaJah team would be spying or using information from the users in ways that would not be in the users' best interests.

Now I think that much of this hot issue has been sparked by the fact that there is a lot of terminology and ambiguously-termed sentences inside the EULA that is the agreement that is shown by software that you download and install on your machine, as well as by software you use directly on the web, and JaJah has its own EULA. Inside the EULA there is some terminology that has triggered a lot of negative responses. Daniel, what's your position on that?
Daniel Mattes: Thank you very much, Robin, for asking that. I mean, the license agreement - the terminology here was something unhappily formulated, and we immediately changed it, because we would never use our system as spyware or something like that, first of all. And second, as JaJah Web is a simple web application, from the technical point of view even would not be possible.

RG: So do you recognize that the way in which your contract agreement with users was originally worded was somehow inappropriate?
Daniel Mattes: Yes, it was not very happy formulated, let's describe it in this way, and we have changed it immediately - it was updated yesterday evening, and I think now it's much better.

RG: OK, so it is possible to go and check this EULA by going exactly where, Daniel?
Daniel Mattes: Just go on the jajah.com web page, and follow the link to the company details, and there you will find a license agreement and everybody can read there that we have eliminated all of these terms.

RG: Good. In fact, you click on the 'about' page, and then on the 'about' page there is a link to the EULA, where the license is much more clearly readable and visible than what is normally possible inside downloadable and installable software. I'll be pleased to check it out and see if I see something that I find bothersome.

I didn't have any negative experience myself with JaJah in the past, and I've come to esteem the value and entrepreneurship that this company has shown. I like to support small companies that have good ideas, and I think that JaJah has had a few ones.

They are still small, they are still trying to place their foot in the market with something that is both valuable to the user as well as to their business they're trying to create, and I think they deserve some good attention.

But I am not absolutely alien to acknowledging that when more than one person worries about something there is indeed the need to question and ask the proper questions to whoever has put out information like this one.

So I'm happy to hear that JaJah acknowledges that there were some problems with that, and that they were only problems in the wording and terminology of much of this license agreement. That there is not in any way an intention on their site, as I understand, neither to install spyware which, according to Daniel, today it would not even be technically possible, as well as not intended to monitor or keep any of the information about the users using the service.

Is that correct?
Daniel Mattes: Absolutely. Absolutely.

RG: Because in the first license there was some information leading, for example, to the fact that through cookies, you were storing some information about people that were using JaJah, and was able to track the sites there were coming from, the next site they would go to, their IP, as well as being able to track the website they are visiting during a JaJah based call.

Are you actually tracking this information through a cookie right now, or not?
Daniel Mattes: No. The only thing - what we store in the cookie, is the last used source phone number, because this is for user convenience. Everything else will, of course, not be stored.

RG: Fantastic. So none of those negative, or possibly negative items are now raised from the reality of JaJah. There are indeed very many, much more popular and prestigious companies and services out there who do intrude in our privacy a lot deeper than what JaJah does, but of course, probably, the complaints have been drowned by the conversations and the many voices.

But there is indeed a large concern for privacy, so I'm glad that we've cleared this out, and that JaJah is to be considered a safe tool.

I'm happy that we've cleared this out, but I leave it mostly to the users and those other technical reviewers out there to verify the new license and to make sure they update their information on their blogs and websites, reflecting what the real situation of JaJah is, and clearing anybody's doubts about the safety of all this.
Daniel Mattes: Yes. And in addition, we also signed up with eTrust, and our site will soon be an eTrust-certificated site.

RG: Well, that doesn't trigger any safety feeling in me as I understand that physically any spammer or spam company can now almost buy an eTrust or other security accounts as long as they pay the money. So for me, what counts more is what you stated, as you are one of the key representatives of the company - what is your official title, Daniel, again?
Daniel Mattes: I am the CTO.

RG: Chief Technical Officer.

So your word counts more than any kind of logo, label or certificate that would show up there, but I'm sure to some other people that would count as well. Well thank you for your time for clearing these issues up, and we look forward to some of your good news, coming next. What's up on the table, on JaJah Web, in the next upcoming weeks?
Daniel Mattes: Maybe you have noticed that we have published information with the ICQ co-founder Yair Goldfinger has joined our board. And with him, we are preparing a lot of interesting things, especially the next thing will be a very interesting affiliate program.

RG: Great. Look forward to learn more, and leave you to your busy evening. Thanks a lot Daniel for your clarification and best of luck to JaJah. Thanks again. From Robin Good, here in Rome, that's all for today.
Daniel Mattes: Thank you very much. Have a nice evening.

--End of interview.

Pointers to other blogs:

ExtremeVoIP
"VOIP Startup Isn't Quite Spyware, But It's Close"
By Mark Hachman
2/10/2006 10:49:00
"AMA startup called Jajah launched its new VOIP service this past Monday, making telephone calls as easy as loading a Web page. But in doing so, customers may essentially be granting Jajah sweeping access to watch and even listen as they chat and surf the Web.

...

The company's privacy policy and EULA, however, seem to imply that the service could be used as a window into a user's online activities, including monitoring a user's surfing habits and the content a user posts to message boards and web sites, sending him spam, disclosing personal information to third parties without control and consent, and even potentially allowing a third party to eavesdrop on the conversation."

ZDNet Blog on IP telephony VoIP broadband
"VoIP service Jajah on my mind as possible spyware"
February 10, 2006 @ 12:40 pm
by Russell Shaw
"The piece on the Extreme VoIP website seems to imply that the software for a new VoIP service called Jajah might actually have another role than letting you talk to your friends and family on the very cheap. And over landline phones, at that.

That would be spyware."

Happily, since yesterday this blog was reporting a number of updates to the JaJah license and rewording its title from "VoIP service Jajah on my mind as possible spyware" to "VoIP service Jahah changes EULA to ease spyware concerns."

The JaJah updated EULA license:
http://www.jajah.com/info/en/eula.asp