Turning Up The Heat On On-Line Registration 464
Saeed al-Sahaf writes "CNN is running a story on the growing number of print newspapers with on-line editions that are requiring registration. Apparently there are some folks out there who don't like this 'feature'! I found a few things interesting about the story: Privacy groups say it's a dangerous practice and promotes spam; I didn't realize people put real personal info into these things (110-year-old surgeons from Bulgaria named Mickey Mouse). About 15 to 20 percent of the registrations for the Philadelphia Inquirer turned out to be bogus, a figure that was much lower than I would have thought. Also mentioned in the story is a web site called BugMeNot.com, which lists 'communal' logins and passwords for on-line newspapers."
Slashdot Subscriptions (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Slashdot Subscriptions (Score:2, Informative)
I don't know if its subscription or not, but entering slashdot.org at BufMeNot brings it up.
Re:Slashdot Subscriptions (Score:2, Informative)
That username/password combo doesn't seem to be valid for slashdot at all.
I'm disappointed in Taco (Score:5, Funny)
CmdrTaco
password
Sheesh, I'd expect better from him!
Re:I'm disappointed in Taco (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I'm disappointed in Taco (Score:5, Interesting)
Make it a frame, parse some HTML to allow one-click-login, add a banner to finance the bandwidth, and you should be all set.
Re:I'm disappointed in Taco (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I'm disappointed in Taco (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I'm disappointed in Taco (Score:4, Informative)
Bugmenot [mozdev.org]
Re:I'm disappointed in Taco (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I'm disappointed in Taco (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I'm disappointed in Taco (Score:3, Insightful)
By _not_ automating their system they make it more effective (i.e. make sure that the onus of blocking their efforts is on the registration end, not their end).
After all, while it's possible for any of these newspapers/etc. to write a custom app to extract the bugmenot.com data and cancel those accounts; however, that's significantly more work (that must be redone everytime that bugmenot.
I love online regestration.... (Score:5, Funny)
Think that's bad, imagine the poor schmoes at asdf (Score:4, Interesting)
Ow. I'd hate to see their mail inboxes.
Re:Think that's bad, imagine the poor schmoes at a (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I love online regestration.... (Score:5, Informative)
@example.com
@example.net
@example.org
(see http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2606.txt [rfc-editor.org])
me@example.com works fine on most web pages
brgnever
Privacy.net (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I love online regestration.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I love online regestration.... (Score:5, Funny)
BugMeNot days numbered? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:BugMeNot days numbered? (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't think that anyone will keep up with and pissed off and semi-organized group of users who don't want to be tracked.
Besides, I'm sure that they have fixed their computers so they won't boradcast an IP address...
Re:BugMeNot days numbered? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:BugMeNot days numbered? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:BugMeNot days numbered? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:BugMeNot days numbered? (Score:3, Informative)
The business model here is the same as for the dead tree version ==> Advertising. Tradional newspapers make money from advertising, not from selling newspapers. The money you pay when buying a copy of a newspaper doesn't cover production costs for most papers. The rest is made up by advertising money.
--
Simon
Re:BugMeNot days numbered? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:BugMeNot days numbered? (Score:4, Informative)
the thing about online, is now most papers are selling online/print package deals. So you buy your paper ad, add an extra fee, and your ad goes online as well. It works great for the local retailers, even ef people don't actually click through, because the exposure online is longer than in print. (ex. in print, an ad runs for one day, and unless you buy multiple days, or weeks, the effectiveness goes down. On-Line, the ad stays in rotation for a week, which is a better deal for the small local retailers, since they get more exposure locally). They also usually tie-in listings and info pages to advertising, so as long as the retailer signs a contract for "X" number of days, then their listing stay on-line for say, 6 months in the local retailer info or whatever... This days, having an on-line version actually does bring in a decent ammount of revenue, especially with the cost of operating a website vs newsprint and press costs.
Re:BugMeNot days numbered? (Score:5, Informative)
Three revenue drivers traditionally have been coequal for printed newspapers: Classified advertising, display advertising (the big ads on news pages), and circulation.
However, circulation revenues are rapidly declining due to market pressures, and circulation costs (a problem of print distribution, but not of Internet distribution) consume more than circulation sales brings in.
Display advertising has declined about 15 percentage points over the last couple of decades, largely due to retail sector consolidations and Wal-Mart (which does not advertise very much in newspapers). So newspapers are increasingly dependent on classified advertising
The audience is moving from print to the Internet, so it is imperative that newspapers find ways to serve that audience online (and deliver advertising to it).
On the Internet, the only business model that has been demonstrated to work for newspapers is the open, ad-supported model. The typical paid site gets something like 1.5 percent of the audience of the printed newspaper, while an open site may actually exceed the audience of the print product. So successful newspapers have open Web sites and rely on advertising for support.
Successful newspapers have implemented classified advertising pricing strategies that harvest that Internet-generated value. The single most effective advertising program implemented by newspapers is the "Top Jobs" program originated at sfgate, [sfgate.com], which lets key classified advertisers pay extra for exposure on regular site content pages.
Regardless of what slashdot groupthink might dictate, the reality is that local retail banner and tile advertising also works. However, the Internet -- because of its potential global reach -- creates unique problems for local advertisers.
Consider the Washington Post. Its advertising base is local. Its Web reach is global. If you think about that for maybe five seconds, you can see why they have implemented registration. They have to develop two completely independent ad sales strategies -- one based on a global audience (which is why they ask business questions of nonlocal registrants) and another based on a local audience. And they need to be able to target local advertising based on geographic information from registration and also national advertising based on the B2B questions from registration.
It is an article of faith on slashdot that "everybody" lies on registrations. My own data shows under one percent falsification. Perhaps most people are not as dishonest as slashdotters.
As for the whine about "inevitable spam"
Re:BugMeNot days numbered? (Score:5, Insightful)
That was a great post. Wow, it would be cool to hang out on a forum where that kind of post was typical, rather than exceptional. Cool for us dorks, in any case.
I don't agree that 99% of logins are accurate. Perhaps 99% of logins are plausible. While I don't believe that *everyone* falsifies logins, I've made my own best effort to pick up the slack, and I know plenty of people who aren't slashdorks who put their correct address on their VISA card application with some reluctance.
What I would give out freely is my GPS coordinate, to single degree precision, which is sufficient to place me within a mild climate of the Pacific Northwest: bring on the ads for lattes, gortex jackets, and hiking boots.
What I find distressing about the cold math of that post is the extent to which advertising has become an unchallenged assumption of American society. Newspapers will change, but ads must go on.
Why don't we simplify the process? For $5000 cash I'll volunteer to stick my head into a souped up MRI machine, have all my emotional associations reprogrammed by powerful American corporate interests, spend the rest of my life buying overpriced products with marginal performance (but I'll feel *sooo* good about it due to the emotional reprogramming I'll never notice), and be able to sit in front of the television for an hour and watch an hour worth of programming (no more ads for me, because these were inserted medically, on a one-shot basis). If every 30 seconds I spend in the MRI having my emotions rewired saves me from watching the same ad for Gap Khakis 300 times, I'll count the time well spent, even if my emotional reprogramming forces me to wear Gap Khakis until I'm incontinent.
If advertising wasn't possible, if some immunity sprung up in the human genetic condition to thwart the imprinting of emotional desires through the images and sounds of desirability, then the media industry would have to be based entirely on paid content. I could live with that. It would lead to better content. For instance, $100 million dollar that have be sprayed on Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan could have been spent instead on writing some scripts worth producing (a chorus of Sopranos on every channel).
I'm looking forward to the day when a typical home PC can animate virtual supermodels on demand to model any aspect of daily living. Say for instance I like Tsarist stout (I do), I could on my home PC create sequences of virtual supermodels having virtual supermodel fun while cavorting around with thick mugs of Tsarist stout of a brand of my own choosing. Amazing! I could reprogram my own emotions to feel cool about drinking the beer I actually like!
Wouldn't that be amazing
No, wait, it wouldn't work. The point is, when I spend $10,000 too much for a carbon spewing SUV, part of what I'm paying for is the secure knowledge that my friends and neighbours have all been exposed to hours worth of emotional conditioning to regard me as being as cool as my wheels. Without advertising, we wouldn't know what the products around us symbolize, and we might have difficulty figuring out which of our neighbours is rich, cool, or sexy. Damn, it can be so difficult figuring out who is sexy and who isn't without the massively socialized product cues. I guess we'll have to keep advertising after all.
Re:BugMeNot days numbered? (Score:3, Insightful)
The net community is much more motivated to stay ahead of the newspapers on this one. People are annoyed and they've got a tool to do something about it now.
philadelphia inquirer bogus percentage (Score:5, Funny)
That percentage has just risen
Re:philadelphia inquirer bogus percentage (Score:2, Funny)
Someone make sure that a Mike Scunt gets registered. They will undoubtedly cancel all accounts that have the word 'cunt' in them. And when they do, imagine what fun it will be to complain that the account for Mike Scunt was cancelled.
Alternatives easy to find (Score:5, Insightful)
So, I read www.kxan.com instead. I think that no matter where I turn, I can find an equivalent article from a competitor. Even content such as what salon.com carries can be found elsewhere. Slate.com and theatlantic.com can give me lots to think about when salon.com's advertisements fail to run on Linux.
So, no biggie. If they make it easy for me, I'm content to set myself up as a 99 year old woman from Ahzerbaijahn. But if they bug me twice about it, or if they fail to test their advertizing/authentication scheme with the browser that I choose to use, then I'll never visit their shithole again.
So long, Austin American Statesman. You suck!
Losing Free Publicity (Score:5, Interesting)
It seems to me that newspapers lose more for requiring registration than they get from that little bit of demographic information.
Newspapers that require registration end up losing boat loads of traffic from search engines and they tend to lose the valuable backward links for article citations in blogs and what not.
In the long run, of course, the most successful format for online news would be the hybrid model that gives some features for paying, others for free registration and has a good amount of info available for free to build and maintain casual web traffic.
They WANT you to enter bogus info... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not true (Score:5, Informative)
They are not going to be too impressed with marketing data like this. If people can be proven to be lying about one thing in a survey then all the other data is suspect as well.
Compare it with banners ads sold on number of shows, clicks AND sales. The first are insanely high but also easily faked. Clicks are slightly more reliable but any advertiser is really intrestted in the number of sales generated.
So if your site can sell 1 billion views that is barely worth anything. If it can produce 100.000 clicks that might get you a few bucks. But generate 1000 sales and you are golden.
Though the reverse is also true... (Score:4, Insightful)
That's why they've mostly agreed on clicks as the "currency" of choice, since both can verify the number of clicks. Then the advertiser can look at his click-to-sales ratio and decide if it's worth it. Of course, this leads to the nefarious practice of redirecting innocents because they generate clicks.
Going by sales is better all around, particularly for the consumer, but it also requires a considerable higher level of trust between the companies involved.
Kjella
The day they started subscriptions... (Score:5, Interesting)
The day the online Washington Post started requiring subscriptions...
Luckily, the NYTimes didn't require a valid email, once upon a time...
There are still enough free sources of news on the Internet-- if some papers want to cut down on their advertising exposure and online circulation, fine. Screw 'em. There is no reason they need my name to send me their news and ads.
Re:The day they started subscriptions... (Score:5, Informative)
There is no reason they need my name to send me their news and ads
Weird. Despite having been registered with the NYTimes for 2 years now, I've never received any communications from them be it news/spam/anything else nor has the email address I provided them been given to anyone.
Re:The day they started subscriptions... (Score:5, Insightful)
Right, and he made the statement that he would not read their content as he doesn't like their rules.
The real problem here is that some sites are more professional about the whole privacy issue than others. Some, like the NYT seem to be very good. Other sites have been a huge mistake to sign up for, IT industry rags seem to be the absolute worst - I never sign up for those anymore with anything other than a disposable webmail account.
I'd like to see a useful accreditation for a site's privacy policy. As it stands right now a site with a good policy can change pretty much at the whim of the owners. Even a site that sincerely swears on a stack of bibles that they will never sell your info is subject to being sold to weasels who will bury you in spam.
Re:The day they started subscriptions... (Score:5, Insightful)
What is the big deal? The washington post, nyt, etc are comercial operations and have to pay to keep the lights on. You can pay to read the newspaper in print or read it online for free provided you give them something in trade (i.e. account info).
They have to pay those journalists and pay for the Reuters/AP feeds. If you want to read their stuff, be prepared to trade for it. $/ or info.
If you want free beer, there are a million crappy blogs...
Re:The day they started subscriptions... (Score:4, Insightful)
What the free papers are offering are a large risk in exchange for not much reward, a risk that you wouldn't be asked to take if you were reading the dead tree edition. Would you read a newspaper if the newsstand man required a valid drivers license, and watched over your shoulder taking notes?
As what many people consider the only remaining viable source of information in this country, newspapers have a unique responsibility to the democracy. Just as voting is annonymous, so too must be information-gathering. Give that up, and who knows when the next witch hunt will find you...
Re:The day they started subscriptions... (Score:5, Insightful)
When you get the newspaper at the newstand you PAY for it with MONEY. The bulk of that cost goes to defray the cost of printing. A major daily paper has HUGE expenses that keep going up, yet they don't raise the price of a paper very frequently.
The profits from a newspaper come from advertisers who are willing to pay a fair rate for print advertising because it works. So far most online advertising has failed to meet the expectations of advertisers, so they don't want to pay much for it.
Newspapers know that the world is changing around them and they are trying to adapt. Are they making the right choices? Don't know. I don't like registering any more than anyone else, but I do know that if newspapers don't figure out how to make a LOT more money online, they will cease to exist. The trend is for anyone younger than say 45-50 to get their news online rather than from print. The good news is that it costs a LOT less to publish online (newsprint costs are soaring -- newsprint is the paper itself). The bad news is that the BULK of the jobs at a large daily paper are NOT reporters and editors, but printers and circulation people. That equals a ton of lost jobs in the future if newspapers go totally online.
We're coming up on 10 years of large numbers of people actively using the Internet and we STILL haven't figured out a way to exchange money for information that people are willing to use that will generate enough money to make it worthwhile to provide that information. Yes I'm a capitalist. Yes I expect people provide goods and services only in exchange for SOMETHING that can be equated to money.
It is basically a paradox. People pay for Internet service, so they figure everything out there should already be paid for, yet if you required ISPs to pay into a fund that was distributed amongst all web sites and services, each site would make microscopic revenues and would cease to operate.
I'm starting to loathe registrations... (Score:3)
Re:I'm starting to loathe registrations... (Score:2)
It's not 10%-15% of ALL registration information.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Mailinator (Score:3, Informative)
Mailinator is: http://www.mailinator.net/mailinator/Welcome.do [mailinator.net]
are you kidding? (Score:3, Funny)
I know people who give their email username AND password even when trying to use "send/forward to a friend" links in a newspaper.
That said, I don't think lying is an option for many people.
Amazing business practice (Score:5, Insightful)
No sane advertiser will pay for a spot based on research data where such an easily checked piece of data is already proven to be false 1 out of 5 times. Income, job, interest are then likely to have a far higher error rate.
I do know that newspapers have to make money and that giving their content away for free does not make too much sense. But this doesn't make sense either.
If they want to get info let them start with basic geographic data. Don't show someone with a european IP ads for america only products. Surely that shouldn't be that hard?
Re:Amazing business practice (Score:2)
I'm not sure this can 'easily' be checked -- issuing a VRFY is no longer reliable and even sending mail and not receiving a bounce is not foolproof. Just because someone puts 'sfc@foo.com' and it doesn't bounce means it's a real address..
No sane advertiser will pay for a spot based on research data where such an easily checked piece of data is already proven to be false 1 out of 5 times.
That should be true, but does t
slashdot logins (Score:5, Interesting)
slashdot
Works on quite a few sites.
Online subscriptions (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe that's why the IRS is less than entertained by my tax returns.
Name: John Smith [namestatistics.com] (note the resemblance [slashdot.org])
SS#: 078-05-1120 [snopes.com]
Addr: 1 Main Street
Anytown, USA
Just kidding, I've been sending notes to the IRS for years reminding them I am from a galaxy far far away, and we don't believe in taxes.
Information poisoning (Score:5, Informative)
Young America, MN 55555
This will match the zip code to the city and will pass those systems that try to verify against bogus data.
They don't care about the people who refuse to sign up, this is meaningless to them. But if they get enough bogus data, those databases become significantly devalued.
And to whoever has that bob@jones.com email address, I offer my sincerest apologies.
Re:Information poisoning (Score:3, Informative)
poor foo@bar.com... he gets a LOT of my email
Re:Information poisoning (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Information poisoning (Score:3, Informative)
If they insist on other demographic info, my occupation is "Other" and my birthdate is in the 1800's.
I really do hope they pass my info to t
Re:Information poisoning (Score:3, Interesting)
I use:
1060 W. Addison
Chicago, IL 60610
(It's a Blues Brothers homage; that's Wrigley Field. I hate registration Nazis.)
Why pay? (Score:3, Insightful)
The internet is a huge resource of information, and if people are uncomfortable or feel that their privacy has been infringed by being asked personal information, there are plenty of other sites that carry the same news.
Demographic information is a very valuable resource, but only if accurate information is submitted. But for now, there's no stopping those who value privacy from posting bogus info.
fake reg (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought the same thing, but almost every time i ask a nontech-savvy person, they tell me they put their real info in. Also, many of these people will also put your email in to those 'send this to 5 friends for $1 off!' type deals. I have had to teach everybody in my family that when you do things like this it adds to spam. Some of them seem to think that its wrong to give fake information, or that you may be tracked down or something. people need to be educated about this stuff!
No kidding... (Score:3, Interesting)
If they could track you down that easily, why would they be asking for your information in the first place?
You're right, really, people just don't think much, do they? I agree... people need to be told about this sort of thing. I was doing some searching with my dad a few weeks ago for something fairly esoteric, and ran into a registration using his
related, disposable email (Score:5, Informative)
You don't need to create an account, just invent one.
Then go to the site and you (and anyone) can look at the mail sent to that address. Go try it out, go to the site, and punch in "ihatespam" for example and you can see all email sent to ihatespam@dodgeit.com
Re:related, disposable email (Score:2)
Re:related, disposable email (Score:3, Informative)
BugMeNot Extention (Score:5, Informative)
If only sites like these were hosted on some sort of P2P network where any browser could access it, but the 'site' could distribute load across many hosts (and have differing information -- bad that it's not global and constant, but good that it's not controlled and thus can always exist -- an acceptible trade-off).
Bill Gates...Darl McBride...Others... (Score:2, Insightful)
tagging email addresses (Score:2, Interesting)
It was something like
user#nytimes@example.com
user%nytimes@example.
where user@example.com is the real address, and something similar to the above would be what you would enter while signing up for a site.
I can't recall what it is, but it would be very useful if anyone can remember.
Re:tagging email addresses (Score:4, Interesting)
ie, my amazon account is registered to amazon@domain.co.uk and my slashdot account is registered to slashdot@domain.co.uk
Anyone who decides to spam me or give out or sell my email address will be found.
Re:tagging email addresses (Score:3, Informative)
user(slashdot)@example.com
user+slashdot@examp
Depending on your ISP, these may or may not work, because these are not supported by all mail hosts.
strong privacy policy? (Score:4, Insightful)
"We helped the first group through it. We reassured most all of the second group with a strong privacy policy. The third group still doesn't like it and I presume many of them did not register with us," he said.
It seems like everyone likes to say that they have a strong privacy policy, but it is often the case that the claim of a strong privacy policy is just a bunch of reassuring words with no basis in reality (remember Toysmart? [nytimes.com] And from what I understand, not much has happened regarding attempts to create legislation.). As long as there are no laws in the US that regulate the use of personal data that are comperable to the laws in Europe, these newspapers could pretty much do whatever they want to with the data.
Now fine, I understand that these newspapers need to get advertisers' money in order to survive. But why not be straightforward about it? For example, if they asked readers to do anonymous surveys in order to help their advertisers, they would probably get far more favorable response than this register-all-your-personal-data-so-we-can-lie-to-y ou-about-not-selling-it-to advertisers bullshit they're doing now.
Re:strong privacy policy? (Score:4, Insightful)
I get these things from my bank all the time, neatly enclosed with all sorts of other advertisement flyers in my credit card statement.
It miffs me off everytime I read one. Its the couchy language they use.. like "only sharing personal information as permitted by law."
What I want to see is the word required by law.
How do you feel they would think if I told them I would haxor their system as permitted by law to verify confidentiality of my personal information, especially after its been shown how the RIAA can apparently use similar techniques to verify misuse of their copyrighted information.
Its obvious that that piece of paper they sent me is just to fulfull some legal requirement that says they must inform me that they are going to share my information, but in order to mislead me, they couch it in "businessese" lingo to make it look like they are only going to violate my trust if they have to. But that's not what they actually say at all!
I just try to limit my exposure by doing business with as few of these guys as possible.
Re:strong privacy policy? (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course they have a strong privacy policy. They keep their list of subscriber addresses very secure.
After all, if the list was publically available, it wouldn't be worth anything when they wanted to sell it!
Re:strong privacy policy? (Score:3, Informative)
I think everybody realizes that "privacy policies" are worthless.
Not registrations, email addressees... (Score:5, Insightful)
The Philadelphia Inquirer started online registration in March, asking readers for e-mail, home address, gender and birth date. About 10 percent to 15 percent of the 300,000 registrations to date have bad e-mail addresses, said Fred Mann, general manager of Philly.com.
Just because an email address will accept mail does not mean the rest of the information is accurate in any way. I have a few junk-dropper email addresses that I'll point these things to in case there is something it might send that I would need (like a password). But the rest of the information can be totally false...
So the real amount of bad data may be closer to the number you were thinking of in the first place (I'd guess 30-40% bogus registrations myself).
How old? (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't forget mailinator (Score:5, Informative)
They are email accounts that require no passwords, or even any setting up. They are throw away accounts designed to curb spam.
Newspapers should consider this (Score:5, Interesting)
The longer you're prepared to wait, the less it costs.
Newspapers should do the same thing. Keep the online edition free, and have no soul-sucking registration to view, but only allow the viewing of articles from non-current newspapers. The online edition would then become a free archive service. People who want today's news can buy today's newspaper, or wait a day or two when it's posted online.
Re:Newspapers should consider this (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Newspapers should consider this (Score:5, Informative)
Newspapers should do the same thing. Keep the online edition free, and have no soul-sucking registration to view, but only allow the viewing of articles from non-current newspapers.
Ironically, it's the complete opposite. I work for a newspaper, and the only thing we charge for is archive access.
A newspaper's archive is priceless. Where else are you going to get the obit for a relative who died 15 years ago? Only one place, your local newspaper's library.
It's Google's fault (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It's Google's fault (Score:4, Interesting)
I go to look at what is happening in the world. I see a story that catches my eye, so I pop it into a new tab. Repeat a few times.
Now, start looking over the tabs. Register. Register. Register.
Sod you. Sod you. Sod you. (The Brits have a really great term here, esp. if you understand the derivation - I was amused that they let Spike say "Sod this" several times on Angel and Buffy....)
I'd like to be able to tell news.google.com "Look, if I have to register to see it, don't even bother me with it."
Sorry folks - while as a content provider you have every right to require me to register to see your content, it is DAMN CRASS of you to lead me on by getting linked from a search engine. It would be like the folks in the stores with the trays of samples offering you a sample then saying "Oh, by the way, you have to have a FooMart Plus Loyalty Card to get a sample."
And whilst I am ranting - has anybody else noticed the number of sites that use Javascript and "hide" the story from plain old HTML (by using <div type=hidden> tags)? Once again, they get a big "Sod you with an arc welder" from me.
I love when the community comes together (Score:4, Funny)
I've got a bit of hippy in me thanks to a 70s generation mom, so I love to see any example of people banding together to fight annoying corporate trends like login requirements for free content. I previously had not heard of BugMeNot.com, but now I'm going to stick a link up on my site to spread it around a little more - as well as adding the firefox extension.
Of course, I suppose I should disable logins for my site in order to avoid hypocrisy/irony... although that'll seriously cut into my meager revenue...
Systematic error. (Score:3, Insightful)
That is because quite a few sites require you to actually enter a valid, working email-adress to be able to register, typically they'll send out a validation-email with a link for you to click on or something.
On the other hand, there's no reasonable way for a website to check any of the other info you put in, I am certain that more thouorugh research would show that though only 20% of the email-adresses where outrigth false (as in bounces), another significant part are "spam-only" or "throwaway" accounts, and even *more* of the info collected in all other fields is incorrect.
It'd not surprise me in the least if 75% lie when asked privacy-invading questions with no easy method of verification such as "household income", I know I do. This is more than enough to make the collected data complete junk, and negate any imagined positive effect of collecting it in the first place.
I've never been spammed by a newspaper site (Score:4, Informative)
In 3 years of doing this, the only spam I have ever gotten from signing up for ANYTHING, EVER, was from Honda.
Re:I've never been spammed by a newspaper site (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm surprised there aren't more drop-in spam solutions that you could just apt-get install. I really don't want to spend a lot of time dicking around with mail server configuration, but the whole spam issue has forced me to spend countless hours beating on my mail server when I could have been off doing something else. It's very
Newspapers could fight back (Score:4, Interesting)
For instance, they might show ridiculously ad-ridden pages (with a 2 minute DHTML/flash/full screen "click to continue to article" ads) for those with bogus registrations (based on a bad email address). They could do anything from showing non-updated (day old) news or, at worst, add "not" after every "was" or "had" and completely throw the reader for a loop. Of course in the last case, they'd probably need to modify their logo/title to show that it was no longer their newspaper to maintain their credibility.
The technology to do this is trivial. If the day comes when a falsely-registered user is worth less to the site (because of advertiser's refusals to pay) than non-readers, I could very well see this happening.
Yep, It works (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yep, It works (Score:3, Funny)
The Guy Who Delivers Your Paper Already Knows (Score:5, Interesting)
Why so much angst about online newspaper reigstration when we've been providing the same information to the same newspapers for years when we get a paid subsription to the dead-tree version?
The same info gets collected and entered into the paper's databases.
Why is providing a (real) name and address so someone can deliver your subscription not a privacy issue, but everyone gets hysterical about keying the same info into on web form?
Re:The Guy Who Delivers Your Paper Already Knows (Score:3, Interesting)
If I subscribe to the NYT for home delivery, for all they know I'm an illiterate who just uses it to wrap fish guts and recoups the cost of the paper by clipping coupons. If I read the NYT on the web, they know I'm
subscription data standard? (Score:3, Insightful)
The days of remembering personal data, spending time retyping it, and making mistakes would be gone. Multiple profiles, with different data selectable in the dialog, would manage different personality scenarios. Submission transactions would be logged. Resubscriptions, including revisions after identity theft, could be automated. And the submission could be digitally signed, with the hash kept as a receipt by both parties. The copyright on one's personal info could be enforced. Possibly a standard default license, requiring the recipient to supply a copy (minus private data) of every list to which one's identity has been added, with selectable optional stronger license requirements (payment, non-distribution, etc).
I recall some kind of "Privacy Platform" standard, but it never arrived, either stillborn or orphaned. Now we need it more than ever. Where is it?
What's the big deal with registration (Score:5, Insightful)
First of all, the New York Times is a FOR PROFIT company. Second of all, they have employees to pay so that their employees can then eat and feed their families. They offer their service for free. All they ask in return is that you provide some information so that they can target ads. Is that so much to ask for? Would you rather just lay out cash?
Frankly, I was more than happy to provide the NYT with real registration information. I use their service and I'm very happy that they provide it for free. I'd be pretty upset if they had to start charging for it because everyone was sharing registrations or providing false information.
Complain about it all you want, but I think it's a very small price to pay. I registered years ago with correct information and to date, they have not sucked my checking account dry, trashed my computer, or done anything else sinister with the information that I'm aware of.
Too many people in the online community feel they're entitled to get stuff for free, but you have to remember that there are people behind the scenes, real people, with jobs that need to feed their families.
I'm personally very thankful that so many news sites do offer their stories for free.
Does anyone give their real info? (Score:3, Funny)
First Name: First
Last Name: Last
DOB: 1/1/1900
Email: nottelling@almostspamless.com
Password: 12345 (same as my luggage
Would you like to receive our newsletter: Sure!
I register as my alias (Score:3, Interesting)
Apparently Orion gets credit card, insurance, bank account, loan, etc applications with rates better than I can get with my real name! I am not sure how, but somehow Orion got a credit history better than mine, with no income reported or recorded at all and no record of ever existing besides online web site registrations. If I did not use my real address on the registrations, I would have never known these things. He does not even have a SSN or any record of existing anywhere on the planet.
Orion Blastar is the ghost in the machine, the man who never existed, but gets treated better than the man who does indeed exist and is behind the ghost.
In a way, Orion Blastar is an Internet experiment of mine that went way out of my control. Based on a fictional character I used to play in a role playing game, and with fictatious posts in various forums, and pretending to be a space pirate, and various other nutty things. Plus a way I can register with an online web site and still stay anoymous. Woot! Who knew it would go this far?
Re:get over it (Score:2)
Re:get over it (Score:2, Informative)
Information. Information about their customers: who is reading their stuff, how old they are, how much money they probably make...in other words, information that defines you as a certain type of consumer who spends their money in a certain way.
Re:get over it (Score:4, Insightful)
With great timeliness, the Globe and Mail (Canada) just started asking for a registration today. But it seemed to only ask for the polls. So then they also gain email-verified poll results.
The G&M is pretty well-respected, and it seems likely that their web-polls were getting spammed by political operatives, since they've been running many about the upcoming Federal election.
Bogus details is like pirating shareware. It isn't hard, it isn't murder, but it isn't right, either.
Of course, it depends somewhat on what kind of privacy protections your country has, and what data they ask for. I don't like giving out salary data. The G&M only asked for a postal code.
-Rob
Re:get over it (Score:3, Funny)
Re:get over it (Score:5, Insightful)
But it is entirely your call whether or not to give that information, or forego the use of their service.
They all know damned well that just becase they ask for information doesn't mean they'll get it. They're also probably aware that their readership will go down proportional to how much information they want, so they make a judgement as to how valuable that information is to them.
You make that same judgement....
Also, the parent was not equating incorrect information with piracy, he was comparing...there is a big difference. His comparison was not entirely without merit. You can choose to ignore the nag screens on Shareware, and continue using it for free, just as you can enter false data in the registration pages of a service, therefore getting it for free. In both cases the providers of the software or the service are aware that this will happen, and are counting on enough people to be honest to make it worthwhile. But being one of the expected dishonest people does not make you any less dishonest....
Re:get over it (Score:3, Insightful)
Rights gone too far (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes men should be allowed to view female targetted ads.
Realistically companies target their advertising to the intended customer. This isn't a violation of your rights. They just wanted to target a different group.
You would be wasting time selling Maybachs in trailer parks, so don't bother trying.