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Instant Messaging Giveaway
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft is planning on giving away $1000/hr randomly to users of the new MSN messenger. They are going to send instant messages to the winners. I can just see it now, 'You've won $1000 in the MSN Messenger giveaway, just go this website and enter your SS# and credit card info for verification.'" Where's Ed McMahon with the big check when you need him?
Most giveaways are explicitly required to have rules that allow people to be eligible to win without purchasing a product. If such a rule applies to this contest, they'll have to have a way for people to enter without purchasing Windows, won't they?
The requested URL
But think of what you save from not using it:
You have to give SS# and Credit Card, so those could possible be submitted for a nice spam. Or better yet they will take 1000 from your credit card to give it back to you.
If you are going to be given a prize you should not have to give vital informaiton (SS#) or financial informaiton (Credit Card).
That makes sense. Run a contest during business hours to encourage people to chat with each other instead of... getting work done. The majority of the winners will be housewives, stay-at-home-for-the-summer kids, and whoever else can run the software through their firewalls...
In Germany a company cannot hold up a lottery where only users of it's product can participate.
So if for example Coca-Cola puts some random numbers on the inside of their bottles and makes some kind of lottery of it, it must provide the same winnning chance to people who just call in though they haven't bougth the product (and not obtained a number).
So Microsoft would need to provide the same chance for getting the bucks to everyone who's using another IM as well.
Don't know how it's handled in other countries, but I think it's like that in many European countries.
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Well... This is all in MS strategy: why spam when someone else can spam for you instead?
Of Code And Men
No more forged documents required, all they need now is a web form for people to enter their Credit Card and Social Security numbers, then bill them.
Blindly running for the dollars, how many victims will check first whether this is hosted at the genuine Microsoft cash-claiming site (if any)?
Apparently similar schemes do work for some phony mortgage counsellers, so I'm afraid they are likely to spread even worse if any such lottery really ever comes into existence.
BTW, the software requirements could mean the DoJ (or at least the Massachussetts Attorney General) might be interested anyway...
Because anyone else using MSN outside of the U.S. must be a terrorist, and MS does not support terrorists...
Probably too dificult (legally speaking) to do a contest truly for the internet (i.e., globally), but it sucks nevertheless.
Probably redundant, but this is another scheme at getting U.S. addresses for junk mailing and many other evil marketing stuff.
Signatures are supposed to be funny?
I've already uninstalled Messenger 6 after getting a popup on the very first time using it.
I have no use for adware, even if it offers to pay me a thousand dollars - as if I haven't been fraudulently offered thousands by other advertisers in little javascript ads before.
Well, this could be because of the slight tilt of the job market in the employers favor, but that's just a guess.
Well, I'm working for a company that has traditionally rewarded its employees with stock options that vest in four years. Due to the recent market, past options are underwater and likely to stay there, and employees don't have any feeling of "reward". Granting stock instead of stock options is an admission that there is no short-term hope of stock price increase IMHO.
Granting stock instead of stock options is an admission that there is no short-term hope of stock price increase IMHO
You can look at it in a different way. A stock option only has value if the stock goes up. Right now, the economy is in the shitter (but starting to look up), and stocks are at low prices. Giving options now will cost more money later when the economy picks up full-swing and stock prices improve.
From that point of view, a company giving stock rather than stock options probably believes that their stock will at least double. If the stock price does not double, then option is worth less than the stock grant. But if the stock price at least doubles, then the option is worth more than the grant.