The Please Call Me millions: The data that didn’t exist
Vodacom says the data behind Please Call Me’s success never existed, though its own documents show revenue tracking was discussed and dropped.
Makate faced a two-decade legal battle with Vodacom over Please Call Me, a mobile service. To claim a share of the money generated by the service, Makate needed data on Vodacom's earnings. However, Vodacom claimed they had no data to support the claim. The issue was resolved when a court ordered Vodacom to provide all records reflecting Please Call Me product calls since 2000.
Despite Vodacom's own admission that they only keep call history for six months, they argued that the service had generated billions of rands in revenue. Vodacom's CEO, Alan Knott-Craig, claimed to have originated the service, but a 2014 court decision ruled in favor of Makate. The final question of how much Makate was owed remained unresolved due to the lack of accessible data.
Written by urgent.news from ITWeb's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
