Consumer brief

NEW YORK (10/11/07)--Talk is cheap--or, in this case, free--as long as you're willing to sacrifice some privacy. A new Internet phone service made by Pudding Media is free. But there's a tradeoff: Your phone conversations are monitored. Instead of paying for the length of your web-based phone conversation with a service such as Skype, Pudding Media's service is paid for by advertisements related to what you're talking about in your phone calls, monitored by voice recognition software. When you sign up for the service, you'll be asked for your age, sex, language, and ZIP code (The New York Times Sept. 24) ...