Your phone bill can be a credit card -- but with some risks

Editor's note: Amy Gahran writes about mobile tech for CNN.com. She is a San Francisco Bay Area writer and media consultant whose blog, Contentious.com, explores how people communicate in the online age.

(CNN) -- Could your phone bill act like your credit card -- and should it?
Wireless carriers have begun offering that very option, expanding beyond already existing donations-via-text-message programs. But the consumer advocacy group Consumers Union is voicing serious concerns about the practice.
This month T-Mobile is rolling out its plan to let its customers buy digital content and services (such as games, magazines and more) through their mobile Web browser and charging them on their phone bill.
T-Mobile has offered this service, called direct carrier billing, since 2009 for apps purchased through Google's Android Market. But by expanding it to browser-based purchases, it's now becoming available to T-Mobile users on any type of Web-enabled mobile device -- potentially even feature phones.

Click to keep reading: http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/mobile/08/10/direct.carrier.billing.gahran/index.html?hpt=te_bn4