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The Media Privacy

The Rise Of Reg-Only Media 478

Posted by timothy from the it's-easy-and-it's-the-law dept.
cswiii writes "Following up his article a few weeks ago about the NY Times' loss of prominence across the online medium (previously discussed on /.), Adam Penenberg returns with a much wider assault on the lurch towards reg-only content by Big Media as a whole. I just wonder what Margaret Thatcher would think about purportedly living in Beverly Hills..."
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The Rise Of Reg-Only Media More

The Rise Of Reg-Only Media

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  • A junk email address (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Crowhead ( 577505 ) on Wednesday August 04, 2004 @01:36PM (#9880738)
    Is a very small price to pay for free content. Besides, with portals like Google news, if there is a story you are interested in, there is a good chance that several other media outlets have written a similar article.

    • Re:A junk email address (Score:5, Insightful)

      by proj_2501 ( 78149 ) <mkb@ele.uri.edu> on Wednesday August 04, 2004 @01:41PM (#9880798) Journal
      in fact, several other media outlets may be carrying the exact same wire story or press release.

    • Re:A junk email address (Score:2, Insightful)

      by tepp ( 131345 )
      You still have to spend the time filling out the registration form, remembering the user id and password for that site, filling in the user id and password periodically when the cookies expire... what a hassle.

      Everyone I know already uses a junk email address for these sites. That's what my hotmail account is for, anyway. But even Google Toolbar doesn't know that I'm 26 years old, female, interested in underwater basketweaving, etc...

    • Speaking of Google... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by saintp ( 595331 )
      I use Opera, and I have not purchased it. In the top corner of my browser, small text ads display, enabled by Google, and based on what I'm currently browsing. No registration required.

      Why can't these big news sites do something like that? Track what you read with a cookie and give you ads that relate to the content you're interested in? The NYT would see that I read lots of tech articles, and could hawk computers at me, while giving ads for dictionaries to someone who does the crossword every day. T

    • Re:A junk email address (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Pharmboy ( 216950 ) on Wednesday August 04, 2004 @04:13PM (#9882304) Journal
      Is a very small price to pay for free content. Besides, with portals like Google news, if there is a story you are interested in, there is a good chance that several other media outlets have written a similar article.

      I agree, and would add that it would increase diversity, not decrease it. Everyone has a throwaway email account they can use for free regs, or can get one in 30 seconds. Its is *free* regs we are talking about, after all.

      Yes, information wants to be free, but someone has to pay for it and if targeting ads is the price, so be it. I can always not visit the site. It's amazing how people will raise so much hell over registering to get free content, and then bitch about the ads. Holy Christ, its free, but its not "free enough"? I guess they would like to get unemployment benefits even tho they have never had and will not seek a job, too.

  • Cue theme... (Score:5, Funny)

    by los furtive ( 232491 ) <ChrisLamothe@NOSPam.gmail.com> on Wednesday August 04, 2004 @01:36PM (#9880743) Homepage

    I just wonder what Margaret Thatcher would think about purportedly living in Beverly Hills...

    So I'm not the only non-beverly hills type who enters 90210 as a zip code? Heck I don't even live in the USA.

    • Re:Cue theme... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by mikael_j ( 106439 ) on Wednesday August 04, 2004 @01:42PM (#9880827)
      I prefer using a real adress, one in Akron, OH. And I don't live in the US either, but a fake name and a real adress + zipcode gets past all those "We're sorry but our retarded computer system doesn't allow you to enter non-US adresses"-problems (these are often the same places that actually make some kind of attempt at checking if you've really entered a somewhat proper adress..)

      /Mikael

    • Re:Cue theme... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by garcia ( 6573 ) * on Wednesday August 04, 2004 @01:50PM (#9880915)
      I don't just enter it I routinely give it out in person as my zipcode. The Minnesota Twins have no business knowing my zipcode and telephone number when I buy tickets. 000-000-0000 and 90210 usually gets a chuckle from the ticket salesperson sometimes it gets a scowl and a question. "I'm from Beverely Hills, our area code is 000."

      The companies might not think it's all that intrusive but I feel that it is my god given right to give them whatever I want just as they feel it is there to ask me whatever they want.
    • Back in the good old days of physical mail, a dormmate filled out all that magazine junkmail with bogus info such as

      income > $500000/yr

      interests: guns, animals, investing

      He claims to actually received invitations to hunting exotic animal safaris; high-class escort services, etc.

    • I used to, but now I always tend to use 10001 (downtown New York City)! I figure it looks, uh, less fake. I imagine all the ELO fans in the house would use 10538 (also in New York state).

  • So what? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mccrew ( 62494 ) on Wednesday August 04, 2004 @01:36PM (#9880746)
    So what? It's their content. Why do you expect them to give it to you and get nothing in return?

    If you want the NY Times content without having to give up any information, then hustle down to the newsstand and actually buy a copy.

    • Re:So what? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by GoofyBoy ( 44399 )
      >Why do you expect them to give it to you and get nothing in return?

      This issue here is that people are giving them information, but its faked information. So if its invalid information, how good is it? Why even have registration anymore if there is nothing for publishers to gain from it?

      • Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by mccrew ( 62494 ) on Wednesday August 04, 2004 @01:54PM (#9880972)
        This issue here is that people are giving them information, but its faked information. So if its invalid information, how good is it? Why even have registration anymore if there is nothing for publishers to gain from it?

        Your points are valid. Certainly the quality of infomation that they collect is likely not very good, and as more folks become savvy, the quality will diminish further.

        But that really isn't the issue. The publishers own the content, and can put up whatever barriers around that content that they want. As you have pointed out, the barriers don't necessarily have to make sense. And even when it doesn't make sense, it remains the sole prerogative of the publisher to conclude that their barriers don't make sense, or are alienating customers, or whatever, and make changes.

        Hopefully the availability of less-intrusive alternatives, such as seeing the same content on Yahoo News, will bring sufficient competition to make accessing content less annoying and invasive.

        • Re:So what? (Score:3, Insightful)

          by furball ( 2853 )
          The quality of the information doesn't have to be good. There just needs to be information. The only thing they really care about is that there's a way to quantify who's reading their online content so they can sell the advertising.

          The reason for the information collection is to determine general audience demographic. As long as they have something they can go to the advertiser and sell it doesn't really matter to NYT or their equivalences.

          Even the act of registration is sufficient to determine readership

          • Re:So what? (Score:3, Funny)

            by red floyd ( 220712 )
            The reason for the information collection is to determine general audience demographic. As long as they have something they can go to the advertiser and sell it doesn't really matter to NYT or their equivalences.

            I gave the NYT a spambucket addr, so I don't know what kind of ads they send to me, but now I'm curious....

            Exactly what *do* they market to 70 year old female CEOs living in Afghanistan who make less than $20K per year?
    • Sure thats fine and all, but theyre using this information for advertising purposes. They're saying that the information they're gathering is accurate, when it's clearly not. That means the advertisers are not necessarily reaching the audience the news organization says they're reaching. That's misleading and wrong. That's "what"

    • Re:So what? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by aussersterne ( 212916 )
      If you want the NY Times content without having to give up any information, then hustle down to the newsstand and actually buy a copy.

      And use up more trees, and create more waste, and consume more gasoline and pollute more air on your way there?

      We have the technology for all information to be distributed with minimal damage to the world, let's use it.

    • Re:So what? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by n()_cHIEFz ( 203036 )
      Wait a minute, they sell advertising to make money. Why should I register for content I can find on a myriad of other sites without doing a thing, this isn't about money at all. I don't live in New York and I would bet the majority of online readers don't either, so I'm not interested in local New York news.

    • I disagree.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Seraphim_72 ( 622457 ) on Wednesday August 04, 2004 @01:50PM (#9880920)

      Right now in Minneapolis you can get 13 weeks of the StarTribune [startribune.com] for $1.00 a week. $13 for ~3 months of the weekly paper. To buy it from the paper box or the store will run you 50 cents a copy. Now even at the higher rate I don't see 50 cents as actually paying for the content. I would hazard a guess that the .50 is for paper, printing, delivery and a small cut to the seller. The content, I would surmize, is paid by ads. There are ads on the paper site regardless of whether you reg or not. What they want is to sell higher priced targeted ads. What I think we are saying is "Hey, I will look at your background noise, but could we do this a little less personally - after all you can't do this in print, and it is the same information - why is it that online you get more out of me?"

      Sera

      • Re:I disagree.... (Score:3, Interesting)

        by aixou ( 756713 )
        Ads are the most important source of revenue for almost all media outlets. The larger the readership of a particular media outlet, the more they can get in ad revenue. That is why magazine subscriptions are so low compared to the newstand price ($20 for a year vs $5 an issue for quite a few magazines) -- they really want you as a subscriber so they can provide some solid circulation figures to paying advertisers.

        I assume the same logic is at work for online news sources as well. You'd be surprised how m
        • Most people, including me, entered real info the first time. Then we found that it would ask again whenever we would switch computers, or sometimes they would just forget the cookies for the hell of it. From then on we just filled in whatever gobble-de-gook is easiest to fill in--usually just pound the keys for random letters.

          Then we get sick of that and go else where for the same news.

          Some of us might use bugmenot, which can even be integrated into your browser, to get past this crap. But for the mo

          • Better methods? (Score:3, Interesting)

            by glpierce ( 731733 )
            Perhaps we just need a simpler, uniform method to provide the critical info. Rather than having to type in 5 different boxes and pick from a list of states, wouldn't it be easier to have a simple alphanumeric code? For instance, 2-letter state, 2-digit year-of-birth, 1-letter sex (for a man in Texas born in 1976, the code would be tx76m). After a few days, it would become as natural as typing a password, and provides too little enough information to get up-in-arms about, but is enough for most advertisers.

    • Re:So what? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Epistax ( 544591 )
      When a company turns their consumers into their product (advertisees), it's time to quit. Every industry is slowly killing their own products and instead relying on advertisers. The result is the advertisers run the companies.

      Taking this into account I must ask what their product is. Is it the New York Times's content, or is it the people reading it? Obviously I am not arguing that they should allow anonymous login, I'm just saying your reasoning is based on the NY Times (etc) adopting a flawed busines
      • The result is the advertisers run the companies.

        And when those companies are the media you have a big problem on your hands: how do you get accurate reports on issues that would have negative effects of companies from the media when the media relies on the adverts from those very companies to stay alive?

        You can't.

        Medialens ended up discussing this with one of the Guardian editors [medialens.org] in April:

        "Ever worked on a magazine launch? The first and only real questions are: who will advertise with in product / Will

    • Re:So what? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by walt-sjc ( 145127 )
      If you want the NY Times content without having to give up any information, then hustle down to the newsstand and actually buy a copy.

      This has nothing to do with content and all to do with advertising.

      FYI, the NYT doesn't really make any money off the newsstand price - that's eaten up in printing and distribution. They make all their money on ads.

      For some bizzare reason, advertisers are willing to advertise without all the detailed market info on radio, television, magazines, newspaper, billboards, etc.

  • Registration only Radio Shack (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 192939495969798999 ( 58312 ) <[info] [at] [devinmoore.com]> on Wednesday August 04, 2004 @01:37PM (#9880748) Homepage Journal
    Remember how Radio Shack used to always ask for your name/address/etc. whenever you bought anything? I could buy a germanium diode for $1 and get asked the same thing as if I bought a $1000 computer. Registration for news content is like making people key in their address to buy a newspaper from a vending machine. It's just completely ridiculous and unnecessary.
    ------
    new t-shirts [zazzle.com]

    • Re:Registration only Radio Shack (Score:5, Interesting)

      by SnapperHead ( 178050 ) on Wednesday August 04, 2004 @01:54PM (#9880977) Homepage Journal
      Thank god they have stopped that ... I complained my ass off everytime I went in there. It was such a hastle.

      I remeber one time I was on a job site 3 hours away, they were the only place around, I had to run in for a screw driver. They asked me 9 million questions, and even more since I wasn't from the area. I explained to them that I was working and needed to hurry back to work. They told me that they can't sell me anything without that information.

      After that, I called rs everyday for 3 weeks bitching about it. I stopped going to rs for a few years after that.

      Now, Strauss auto does this. They go a step futher. If you call on the phone to ask a price on ... lets say, new breaks. They make you answer close to 15 questions. Phone number, email address, mailing address, then the questions that would make sense about the product I was looking at.

      When I went into the store to buy it ... I was asked the same questions again. I told them not to put me in there computer, they refussed. They said its not possiable to even open the register without it. So, of course ... I gave them info such as:

      Joe Smith
      123 Main St
      Sometown, NJ 05555
      (732) 555-1212
      eat@joes.com

      They bitched about it ... I told them that was the only info I was going to give them.

      Now, I understand WHY they ask you SOME of the info. They ask your phone number so they can track what cars you own. Thats great and all ... but I was working on a friends car!

      I have called there corperate office quite a few times, with no result so far. Needless to say, I no longer shop there.

      As far as NY Times goes ... guess what ... I have yet to vist there site since the first time I went there that forced me to sign up. Like many other say, they can do what they want in order for me to get there free content. Ok, fine ... but I get my news from other free sites. Why do I need them ? Hell, they can start charging for all I care ... I will still get my news from elsewhere. Its no skin off my back.

    • The difference is... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by wiredog ( 43288 )
      at a vending machine you're buying the newspaper with a quarter. How do you pay for it online? With information. Or (as at Salon.com) sitting through some advertisement. Advertisers want to know the demographics of the people seeing the ads. At Slashdot that's easy to figure out, at NYTimes or WashingtonPost it's not. Thus the registration.

    • Comparing to the Shack is a bit unfair... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Electrawn ( 321224 ) <{moc.oohay} {ta} {nwartcele}> on Wednesday August 04, 2004 @02:07PM (#9881124) Homepage
      From a former employee:

      As annoying as that was, it was a critical part of Radio Shack's business. Giving a correct name and address would just get you a flyer every month. About 20% of the months business would be people coming in grasping that flyer looking for stuff.

      Radio Shack employees are/were commissioned sales people. The address thing was used to build your business. The idea is you don't goto the Shack, you go see Jason, Bob, Steve...whoever @ the Shack. When people balked at giving name and addresses over purchases, you told em what was being done with them: Company mailing list for a flyer.

      Enter the computer. RS employees are tracked on dolalr per ticket and were tracked on name and address percentage. The computer didn't care if the purchase was $1.00 or $1,000 dollars. If you fell below 90% Names and addresses, you were in trouble.

      The point is, as annoying as that policy was - it brought back many customers. Then Radio Shack started policies that created higher turns on employees and then they had to can the policy...but thats a different story. The registration emails are supposed to generate more subscribers for these papers and we have to see from the financials at the papers if the strategy is working. (I doubt it.)

      -Electrawn

      • As annoying as that was, it was a critical part of Radio Shack's business. Giving a correct name and address would just get you a flyer every month. About 20% of the months business would be people coming in grasping that flyer looking for stuff.

        Tough shit. I don't have to be a willing partner in some company's business strategy. I don't have to be polite to cold-call telemarketers, I don't have to be polite to door-to-door trespassers (that "No Soliciting" sign means something), I don't have to read

  • Don't (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Zebra_X ( 13249 ) on Wednesday August 04, 2004 @01:37PM (#9880749)
    Register, and don't read it. The companies will see this in their traffic stats and realize that registration effects readership reach. They are after all driven by the number of eye balls that grace their sites.

    Using fake data isn't going to help becuase it doesn't lower the traffic volume.

    It's time for some "Virtual Boycotting"!

    • Re:Don't (Score:5, Insightful)

      by poot_rootbeer ( 188613 ) on Wednesday August 04, 2004 @01:45PM (#9880857)
      They are after all driven by the number of eye balls that grace their sites.

      Common misconception -- they are driven by the number of dollars that advertisers are willing to pay to get their message into some number of eye balls.

      Online advertisers don't care as much about reaching the widest audience possible as they are about reaching the segment of the audience most likely to result in sales. A site operator can make more money with 10,000 users he knows everything about than he can with 10,000,000 users he knows nothing about.

    • Re:Don't (Score:5, Interesting)

      by peculiarmethod ( 301094 ) on Wednesday August 04, 2004 @01:54PM (#9880967) Journal
      Nope. Not true. They manage to get funding because they can show advertising company A that they have plenty of their potential clientel signed up on their system; something you told them by signing up and either filling in options, OR not filling in options. All information is worth something in an age of.. gasp information. It's pure currency.. and can be converted to the real stuff simply by a marketing drone. Not to mention, just the number of people registered with real emails will be a very interesting fact to anyone willing to buy that email list off them. And not, not necessarily for spam. Cross reference, anyone? People are doing amazing things with data mining, and the tendency with corps is to push the limits of legality.. to know the law, and work around it until someone calls foul. So, go ahead, sign up. Not me. I wait for someone else to post a login, a copy of the article, or I read other sources and come to my own conclusion. I'm not going to work for some short sighted companies opinion. One they most likely handed the reporter, anyhow.

      pm
    • Registration is bad, because I end up having to remember the stupid login details, bad enough remembering my slashdot login :)
  • How is this much different than Slashdot's reg / pay for advanced stories and no ads? Anon Coward is really just intimidation the register.

  • Free Internet (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Beuno ( 740018 )
    Isn't the whole idea of the Internet for information to be free?

    • Re:Free Internet (Score:5, Insightful)

      by samael ( 12612 ) <Andrew@Ducker.org.uk> on Wednesday August 04, 2004 @01:40PM (#9880793) Homepage
      There's no 'idea' for the internet.

      There's a bunch of computers all linked together. If people want to give away information they can. If they want to charge for it, they can try to do that too.
    • Isn't the whole idea of the Internet for information to be free?

      No. The idea for the Internet was toi simply connect several uniersities and scientific centers together. Everything else is an afterthought bolted on to serve the purposes of those who bolted the things on. (In English, please!)

    • what are you 8?

      anyway, this is not 1993. the internet was visioned as this utopian information repository, but in 1996 that vision was dashed by companies.

      • Re:Free Internet (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Oligonicella ( 659917 )
        Companies who are comprised of individuals. Many of which have no more than their single or couple owner(s).

        "Companies" is such a meaningless word in this context.

        I think you meant those companies who have banded together as an evil empire to rape and plunder the innocent serfs such as yourself.
    • Isn't the whole idea of the Internet for information to be free?

      In the case of the New York Times, they have to pay for salary and benefits, phone bills, plane tickets, etc. etc. etc. so their reporters can gather the information and put it in publishable form. If they do not have some source of income (whether it be advertising, subscriptions, or the elusive 'micropayments'), they cannot continue publishing.

  • Reg-only are annoying (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cephyn ( 461066 ) on Wednesday August 04, 2004 @01:37PM (#9880757) Homepage
    I still resent having to register for newspaper sites. I don't need to register to pick one up at the newsstand, why should I for the site? Demographics blah blah blah but its not like the Chicago Tribune is going to start covering Denver news if a bunch of people from Colorado start reading it. They're going to be about Chicago, no matter who reads it.

    I'm just glad google news has a partnership where you dont have to register when you use their links.

    • Re:Reg-only are annoying (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      >I still resent having to register for newspaper sites. I don't need to register to pick one up at the newsstand, why should I for the site?


      um, because you have to pay to get one at the newsstand? otherwise, what's in it for the newspaper sites to offer for free?

      • they offer it for free because they can get paid for targetted advertising from advertisers. but they aren't getting good information from users who resent having to give their information, which leads to bad data and bad targetting. Eventually, they'll lose that money.

        Now, if you can't find a paper for free, you're not looking hard enough. people leave them lying out for the next person all over the place. So really, reading it on the web isnt much different. Its all free.

    • Re:Reg-only are annoying (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gilroy ( 155262 ) on Wednesday August 04, 2004 @01:48PM (#9880893) Homepage Journal
      Blockquoth the poster:

      I don't need to register to pick one up at the newsstand, why should I for the site?

      Of course, they're also giving you the news without asking for 50 cents, either... Registration is the "price" you pay for full access to the online newspaper. Is that too much? Fine, then don't read it... but don't adopt some holier-than-thou attitude just because the newspaper (gasp) asks for something back before it hands over its content.

      If it's a bad business model, they'll go under. But there's no moral high ground here.

      • Re:Reg-only are annoying (Score:3, Interesting)

        by tepp ( 131345 )
        Of course, they're also giving you the news without asking for 50 cents, either... Registration is the "price" you pay for full access to the online newspaper. Is that too much? Fine, then don't read it... but don't adopt some holier-than-thou attitude just because the newspaper (gasp) asks for something back before it hands over its content.

        It's different than that. I'd gladly pay 25 cents a day for the Washington Post. But, I'm in Seattle. They don't distribute there. Or rather they only distribute the
    • I don't need to register to pick one up at the newsstand, why should I for the site?

      But if you wanted to get a subscription to the print version of the newspaper, you'd be required to give them your name and address and possibly credit card number.

      Online news sources should consider this dual model for their own use -- it may be justified to ask for personal information from devoted and regular users of the content, but the occasional visitor shouldn't be asked to jump through any hoops. The first few
    • You're right, you don't register to buy a newspaper, unless you subscribe for home delivery. You PAY money for the newspaper. Bandwidth isn't free. Someone has to pay for it. If they want your email address instead of money that may, or may not be a fair trade, depending on what they do with your email address.

      And the demographics aren't for their news coverage, anyway. It's usually for advertising purposes. And just like TV, advertising can pay the bulk of the money incurred in putting the publicati
      • And the demographics aren't for their news coverage, anyway. It's usually for advertising purposes. And just like TV, advertising can pay the bulk of the money incurred in putting the publication together and the bandwidth fees to let you read it

        Fair enough, but then the advertisers are getting screwed, since there's so much fake data all that valuable targetted advertising is being wasted on a bunch of schmoes. Its not the worst thing in the world, but its pretty slimy on the part of the newspaper to put
    • I still resent having to register for newspaper sites. I don't need to register to pick one up at the newsstand, why should I for the site?

      Its a computer thing. Don't know why either. For example, I just bought some tickets from Ticketmaster (thats another topic for another day), and I had 2 choices to get the tickets in the 8 or so that they were on sale.

      1) call on a telephone thingy

      or

      2) go to the website

      If I were able to get through to the website (I know noone that did), I would have had to "crea

  • It needs to change (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tepp ( 131345 ) on Wednesday August 04, 2004 @01:37PM (#9880758)
    It needs to change, and soon.

    I'm tired of registering at every news site I visit. With the populatiry of sites like Fark and Slashdot, I no longer go to only one news site - I visit articles in newspapers in Arizona, Australia, Germany, Maine, in addition to my usual 3 - The Washington Post, the Seattle P-I, and the BBC World News.

    I don't mind registering for my usual 3. I do mind registering when I want to read a single article in the Boston Piccayune. This makes me give up, and go somewhere else.

    An accepatable compromise is to make registration necessary after reading 5 or so articles, instead of for all articles at that site. After all, do their local advertisers really care about someone who is miles away?

  • Conclusion is a bit weak (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sheetrock ( 152993 ) on Wednesday August 04, 2004 @01:38PM (#9880762) Homepage Journal
    Here's what I propose: Web publishers should get together to set up a one-stop registration process for everybody. We sign up once and would be done with it.

    It exists, and is called Passport. There was a hue and cry over it because people were worried about a centralized source of information in control of Microsoft about who they are and where they're going.

    Even if you fake the information, it'd be like a super cookie. The best way if he's concerned about privacy is the current way -- stop the computer from broadcasting its IP address everywhere he goes and give a different piece of fake information to every website.

  • How advertisers make money (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Marxist Hacker 42 ( 638312 ) <seebert42@gmail.com> on Wednesday August 04, 2004 @01:38PM (#9880763) Homepage Journal
    Maybe, but I don't even see advertising on the Internet. I tune it out, like, say, Yanni in an elevator. I also don't understand why publishers aren't more concerned about the integrity of their data -- unless, of course, all they care about is the illusion of accuracy.

    That is EXACTLY all they care about- the illusion that they can target the ads properly, so that they can charge more money for "targeted advertising".
  • Seems this guy fromWired has taken cues from Poynter Online (http://www.poynter.org/). They've been discussing this exact topic for weeks already.
  • It doesn't strike me as much of a "right" that I get to access content on my terms.

    When you're in someone else's house, you play by their rules. Don't like it, don't register. Simple as that. It's on part of my rights that I get something for nothing.

  • Shill accounts. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by scowling ( 215030 ) on Wednesday August 04, 2004 @01:42PM (#9880814) Homepage
    Whenever I go to a newspaper or other media site to read an article and they demand registration, the odds are really good that someone has already registered a 'shill' account with some predictable username and password. Often [site]user@[site].com, with the password [site].

    One day, the time will come when they'll start comparing IP addresses against the registrar of any given account, but until then, I don't bother with my own accounts anymore. To be frank, I can't even remember what I used to sign up (once upon a time) for the LA Times.
  • Doesn't everyone register as bill.gates@microsoft.com when going to these sites?

    Also, won't they lose a majority of their traffic which Slashdot and Google users send to them if no one can index their data for search engines or link to the content...

    Stupidity is not a crime so you're free to go

  • Registration (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 04, 2004 @01:44PM (#9880841)
    This would be ok if they had some sort of universal "passport" where I can just type in an ID# and It'll take my information straight out of this "passport" type thing and make my life much much easier.

    It would also be great if said "passport" can hold all my other info, like an address book, my social security number, all credit card information, and every password I'd ever need.

    This passport should also be widely available to everyone, as that's the only way it'll be convenient. It should also be trustworthy and buzzwordy at the same time.

    All I'm saying is that if I gotta register, might as well make it easy for me. If I gotta buy something, may as well be a half-click away. I mean if the interweb is supposed to be for everyone, it better be easy, right? Right? Security? Identity theft? Why the hell would anyone ever do that? I mean we're not terrorists or anything, are we?

  • tell you what I could live with (Score:4, Insightful)

    by zogger ( 617870 ) on Wednesday August 04, 2004 @01:45PM (#9880848) Homepage Journal
    if I go to a site where I don't want to register (vast majority of them),I *don't*, I don't even use any phony info, I just skip it, and they lose a potential viewer and customer maybe, but I WOULD check off a few boxes indicating any type of ads that I wouldn't mind having on the page. I'm a normal guy, some gadgets and services interest me, I *might* go visit some companys webpage from an ad, just not ads that have zero relevance. Let ME pick, then you don't have to guess! Just give me a quick list to scan, I make my selections, then poof on to the content. No registering needed then, no cookies needed, no transfer of email address, no hard feelings.

  • An alternative to registering... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Maestro4k ( 707634 ) on Wednesday August 04, 2004 @01:46PM (#9880865) Journal
    There's a site that addresses this problem, it's called Bug Me Not [bugmenot.com]. Just go to it, type in the URL of the site wanting a registration and it'll pull up a generic one that's been submitted. Use that to log in and you can read the article, no personal info given up. It's a community site so if a login stops working another one will be created and added.

    Using Bug Me Not will likely help a lot. When the sites realize that they can't control logins and they have dozends, hundreds or even thousands logged in with the SAME info, they'll know it's not helping them in any way. What'll happen next remains to be seen, but I doubt they'll pull content, it's too ingrained into people's expectations anymore.

    • bugmenot's popularity will kill it (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Heisenbug ( 122836 ) on Wednesday August 04, 2004 @02:13PM (#9881176)
      The problem is that bugmenot-type services work better the more people use them -- having one such service is ten times as good as having ten individual services. That means it's centralized, and that means it's vulnerable. Stopping such services in theory is difficult, but stopping any particular such service is easy:

      What'll happen once sites catch on? They'll hire someone like me to spend half an hour writing a script that queries bugmenot for logins to their site, and disables those accounts. Making bugmenot useless won't be very hard.

      Perhaps what we need is a more anonymous version of Passport -- a site that knows how to sign up automatically to a large number of free-reg-required sites, with information that you give it one time. Then when you want to read the New York Times, you go to RegItForMe.com and say "please create an account at [www.nytimes.com] with my (possibly fake) info," which doesn't take any longer than using bugmenot. This way the pan-internet super-cookie privacy concerns of Passport are neatly avoided -- as far as each reg site knows, you're using a local account with them. RegItForMe.com knows which sites you've requested a login for, but not when or how often you go.

      Does that sound feasible?
        • What'll happen once sites catch on? They'll hire someone like me to spend half an hour writing a script that queries bugmenot for logins to their site, and disables those accounts. Making bugmenot useless won't be very hard.

        I suspect this would become an arms race, Bugmenot would find a way to block such things (robots.txt files would probably be ignored but IP access lists wouldn't be hard) and would end up costing the media sites more than it's worth.

        • Perhaps what we need is a more anonymous versi

  • BugMeNot (Score:2, Informative)

    by shrubya ( 570356 )
    Over 30 posts and no one has pimped BugMeNot [google.com] yet?

  • news.google.com (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 04, 2004 @01:48PM (#9880897)
    All news.google.com needs to be perfect is an option to simply filter out all of the (subscription) articles.

    Michael
  • Like I'd actually give them real information, even my Safeway/Vons card is based on a bogus personality. I really don't mind registering made up personalities with email addresses (hotmail or yahoo) based on other imagined persons. I love filling out surveys such as to make my bogus registration person have such a conflicting set of interest and attributes, that they could not exist. The really amusing thing is that some companies might actually try to use this data for some business purpose. M

  • Inaccuracy Factored In (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tabdelgawad ( 590061 ) on Wednesday August 04, 2004 @01:51PM (#9880928)
    Even if only 25% of registrations are relatively accurate, that's still 25% better targeting of ads than purely random. The papers know this, the advertisers know this, and the pricing of ads reflects this.

    Can I have my 5 minutes reading this article back?

  • It's utterly pointless... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Morpeth ( 577066 ) on Wednesday August 04, 2004 @01:51PM (#9880938)
    For several reasons the author pointed out.

    I always put into some smart a*s name and info, as do pretty much all my friends (80% of whom are IT types). So any demographic information is really crap. I tell my parents, friends, etc to do the same.

    'Readership' I've probably created 4-5 accounts on the same site b/c I forgot the stoopid uid/pwd and just create another one if I really want to read something. I think any numbers about subscribers/readers are totally off.

    People are busy and cautious. It puts people off - they don't want to give up any information (asssuming they are honest on the forms), or they don't want to be bothered signing up for a site that they don't even know they're interested in. Plus how many freakin uid/pwd combos do I really want to keep track of? Not many.

    I think for posting to bulletin boards etc it makes more sense, so a-holes, harassers, etc can be handled. But when it's non-interactive like just reading an article, I don't see the point (as a user, I understand why the biz does)

    If a site forces a sign-up, unless I REALLY need/want to read something, I'm outta there. Otherwise they never learn anything useful about me, other than maybe some generic machine location info.

    My 2 cents anyhoo

  • Bypass Compulsory Web Registration -- bugmenot.com (Score:3, Informative)

    by hajmola ( 82709 ) on Wednesday August 04, 2004 @01:52PM (#9880941)
    It's truly a gem. Check it out...

    http://bugmenot.com

    Don't slashdot them. I mean...oh...hmm...
  • No, it just means the next "rising network" won't be on television, it will be a syndication network for related websites, blogs and RSS feeds..Pay your fee and get commercial free access to a bunch of related content. This is already a major idea in adult websites, which always seem to be on the front edge of raking-in-the-cash technology.
  • I noticed that the Miami Herald, home of Dave Barry, started asking for registration. The way it works, you get one free visit, then they want you to sign up. So I just delete cookies to become a new user again.

  • Pushback from Google News (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Wednesday August 04, 2004 @01:55PM (#9880984) Homepage
    Google News puts "subscription" after those links that require a login, and usually offers non-subscription alternatives. So there's some pressure from that direction to avoid registration.

    One effect may be to encourage more readership of Government-funded news sites. That's fine, as long as they're not all from the same government. Google News frequently has links to Xinhua, the BBC, the Voice of America, and Al-Jazeera. None require registration.

    It's worth reading all four of those. If all four have roughly the same take on some event, the info is probably correct. If they don't, news manipulation may be going on.

    (It's also amusing to read the Jerusalem Post [jpost.com], which is Israel's equivalent of Fox News.)

  • Does this really apply to us? (Score:3, Funny)

    by LGagnon ( 762015 ) on Wednesday August 04, 2004 @01:56PM (#9880994)
    Slashdotters don't often RTFA anyways. :P

  • For the nytimes yes, for others no (Score:5, Insightful)

    by asv108 ( 141455 ) <asv@@@ivoss...com> on Wednesday August 04, 2004 @02:01PM (#9881057) Homepage Journal
    The nytimes is a great resource that provides excellent content free of charge. I registered once probably eight years ago and it hasn't been an annoyance since then. I am accessing their content free of charge, what is wrong with registration. Especially considering they don't even force you to verify the information?

    Now for other sites, I would probably avoid depending on the amount and quality of content. I would certainly not waste the time to register for my local paper's website or something of similar value to me. If you don't think getting access to the nytimes for free is not worth the "hassle" of registering, boycott the nytimes. Otherwise, don't complain.

  • Grey Lady lives (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Wednesday August 04, 2004 @02:15PM (#9881204) Homepage Journal
    Rumors of "the NY Times' loss of prominence across the online medium" have been greatly exaggerated. The current paper issue of _Wired_ includes a foldout graph of hundreds of (mostly unnamed) blogs, ranked by "inbound links" count, indicating the amount of traffic flow from the blog to the "web" sites it "logs". (Tellingly, the feature itself is missing from Wired's website issue.) The NYT is #1, at about 19K links, beating #2 CNN (at about 17K links) by over 10%. Slashdot is #5 at about 9K links (also exceeded by BBC News and the Washington Post); the counts fall off pretty steeply after the first 50 of the 2000 they claim to graph. So Wired's editors show their usual self-contradictions, and the NY Times is both the most influential "blog" on the Net, and no longer prominent on the Net. Sounds like the media biz as usual: controversial for being controversial, and never so wrong as when it reports on itself.

  • surprized that people don't know better (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bigbigbison ( 104532 ) on Wednesday August 04, 2004 @02:49PM (#9881525) Homepage
    While most of us use fake email addresses and info (or always try slashdot as username and password first) I have seen lots of friends and family members input their real information into those websites. So while the number of people who know better than putting real info into online forms is growing, I would imagine that there are still a majority of users that don't know better. Untill my I can train people like my dad to put in fake information, the registration sites will still be effective.

  • Geolocation for verification purposes (Score:3, Insightful)

    by harmonica ( 29841 ) on Wednesday August 04, 2004 @03:48PM (#9882071)
    Can't they use geolocation services like Maxmind, Quova etc. to verify entered information in most cases? If someone enters country=USA / ZIP=90210 and comes from Italy judging from his IP address, the server knows it got screwed and can at least drop the entered information. It doesn't have to deny access, but that way less crap would find its way into the database.

  • BlockBuster Video and their phone calls... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dnahelix ( 598670 ) <slashdotispieceofshit@shithome.com> on Wednesday August 04, 2004 @04:01PM (#9882187)
    ...(at least read the last paragraph)

    Has anyone here received a phone call, usually around dinner
    time, where there was nobody there?

    Recently, I went to the Blockbuster I usually go to and when I
    went to check out, this not-very-nice person says I can't rent
    anything because my phone number is 'no longer valid.' Well, I
    begin telling her that I removed my land line service and was
    only using my cell phone and I was not going to give her my cell
    phone number. Well she starts on about how they need a
    number and I realize that it had only been 4 days since my
    turning off service! I then interrupt her blabbering and ask her
    loudly and forcibly, how did they know my phone had been
    disconnected so soon after the fact. I then asked if Blockbuster
    was one of the companies that used robots to call people in the
    evening, just to see if the phone number works. She then
    looked down at the floor and said she don't really know about
    that. I told her Blockbuster could kiss my ass and that I would
    just go to one of the many other Blockbuster outlets and ask
    about it.
    So, I go to this other Blockbuster and get the same DVD and go
    check out like normal. Well, this guy checks me out no problem,
    so no I'm confused...

    So, after several weeks of going to this Blockbuster, I go just the
    other day, go ring up, and goddamnit if it's not the same bitch
    from the other store telling me my phone number's not valid! She
    remembers me the same time I remember her and I start going
    off on the whole robot phone call thing and I'm not giving her
    my number and apparently she was the only one that
    cared about it anyway. She says she's filling in for the manager
    for two weeks, and she let me check out w/o a phone number,
    but when the manager returns she'll ask about it.

    So, long story short, I hate those fnck!ng robot phone callers
    and that's why I disconnected my phone. And I have found out
    some of the reason why they do it. The robots call every few
    days to make sure you are still there.












  • The way Google will die (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Bitmanhome ( 254112 ) <[bitman] [at] [pobox.com]> on Wednesday August 04, 2004 @04:02PM (#9882191)
    This is like the path Microsoft will use to beat Google. Microsoft has no problem making deals with other companies, and locking their own content. So over time, big media may disappear from Google, but it will appear on Microsoft Search.

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