Is This The End Of Premium Text Messaging Games?

More than four years after lawsuits were filed against Fox Broadcasting, NBC, and other parties claiming that sweepstakes promoted on the TV shows "Deal Or No Deal" and "American Idol" were illegal under California and Massachusetts law, the parties have reached a tentative settlement.

The settlement, scheduled for a preliminary hearing in federal district court in California on September 19, provides that the defendants will:

1) refund all premium text message charges paid by class members – potentially millions of people – who submit valid claims,

2) pay attorney's fees and costs up to about $5.2 million, and

3) consent to an injunction that bars them for five years from creating, sponsoring, or operating any contest or sweepstakes for which entrants are offered the possibility of winning a prize in which people who enter via premium text message do not receive something of comparable value to the premium message charge in addition to their entry.