Slashdot Mirror
The Rise Of Reg-Only Media
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..."
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 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.
I'm a writer, a poet, a genius, I know it. I don't buy software, I grow it.
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.
Hey, Windows users, there is no such thing as "forward" slash, there is only slash and backslash.
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
stuff |
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"!
How is this much different than Slashdot's reg / pay for advanced stories and no ads? Anon Coward is really just intimidation the register.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Isn't the whole idea of the Internet for information to be free?
I'm a firm believer in free media and such. i think reg-only media is a terrible idea and should never have evern started.
And i think making people pay for it is even worse... It's just a pain sometimes to have to register to see news and stuff.
Not to mention i'm kinda leary about it because usually they want an e-mail address or your address and theres no telling where all that ends up...
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.
Moo.
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?
Tepp
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.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
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".
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
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.
Slashdot Moderation: From positive to terrible in 2 "insightful" posts.
Before bugmenot, how many fake registrations did everyone make to NYTimes for instance? I know they have a few dozen fakes from me.. How inaccurate is their data? Do they know this? Or are they just assuming that 99% of their users are really from zipcode '12345'?
Post lots of comments, get rated, and eventually you'll be above the default threshold because you will have built up this mysterious quality called Karma. Anybody with Karma above Normal posts above the default threshold.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
The author suggests a one-stop registration for all news sites. Yes, that should work perfectly. Then I can be Dr. Terwilliger on 5000 sites at once.
-- I prefer the term "karma escort."
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.
www.kitchengeek.com -- Nosh for
Though I don't normally register with these sites, I'm not entirely opposed to it. If the sites are perfectly willing to accept fake info, I am perfectly willing to supply it. :)
Use bogus info to reg accounts for free online services like my favorite email is default@anonymous.no and such bogus details and thats it...make a little txt file with logins and passowrds for it and ur done....pretty soon they should realize that they get alot of bogus info and eather try harder or give up...if they try to hard its gonna backfire by a decrese in trafic so for them its hard to fight.
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
If registration is too annoying, users won't read it. If users won't read it, they won't get advertisers.
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?
I guess you're not supposed to feed the trolls...oh well
But seriously...come back and post again when you're required to register to READ the slashdot comments.
If I were going to write a story for NYT, then I'd register, but since I just want to read the article they don't need to know what my name is.
--Welcome to the Realm of the Hawke--
is a solution to these types of sites. There's a firefox extension that queries their db for the current site your trying to log into and gives you a username/pass to use
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.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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.
One step closer to Stallman's vision
Over 30 posts and no one has pimped BugMeNot yet?
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
It's also easier to just type in stuff at random than it is to answer the questions accurately. I'm curious whether the data the companies collect this way is as valuable as they assume it is.
I got tired of that, too, so I stopped giving them my info. The puzzled clerk at the counter generally requires a few moments to process the fact that I don't want to give them my info, but eventually I buy my gizmo w/o registration.
All news.google.com needs to be perfect is an option to simply filter out all of the (subscription) articles.
Michael
You mean like slashdot (Score:-1)
Cheese and rice, dude...what'd you do to get a DEFAULT posting level of -1? Slap CmdrTaco in his face?
Just curious.
El riesgo vive siempre!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The interesting thing is Radio Shack stopped the process, saying it was too annoying to customers.
Yet now even more places ask.
For the lazy: BugMeNot Extension for Mozilla based browsers.
BugMeNot is not nearly as good without it.
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 (Actual name and email, as well as other traits may vary)
Right now in Minneapolis you can get 13 weeks of the StarTribune 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
Sera
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
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?
Imposing Libertarian views on everyone online since 1992.
income > $500000/yr
interests: guns, animals, investing
He claims to actually received invitations to hunting exotic animal safaris; high-class escort services, etc.
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
'The unexamined life is not worth living' - Socrates
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.
meh
Sorry, with hyperlink... bugmenot.com
I love the fact that these "register-only" companies still want to score high with Google. Thank god for Google cache. It kinda renders the registration useless. I feel all warm and fuzzy every time I don't have to register :)
A fine example of corporate greed out there wanting its cake and eating it too. Registered content shouldn't be indexed by search engines, or should be explicitly marked as register only.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
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.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Thank god they have stopped that ... I complained my ass off everytime I went in there. It was such a hastle.
... 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.
... 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:
... I told them that was the only info I was going to give them.
... but I was working on a friends car!
... 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.
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
When I went into the store to buy it
Joe Smith
123 Main St
Sometown, NJ 05555
(732) 555-1212
eat@joes.com
They bitched about it
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
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
until (succeed) try { again(); }
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, which is Israel's equivalent of Fox News.)
Slashdotters don't often RTFA anyways. :P
You used to have to register for hotwired.com (later changed to wired.com). Back then I didn't see any reason to lie. Of course they used my e-mail address to spam me. It was the first spam I ever received.
Kramer: They're trying to screw with your head.
Jerry: Now why would a junior high school want to screw with my head?
Kramer: Why does Radio Shack ask for your phone number when you buy batteries? I don't know these things.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
AC comments get piped to
This is one more reason why anyone who cares about the content of the news they read should ensure that they read some non-corporate news sources.
As a reader, you should demand that your media keeps your interests in mind, not just the interests of people who want to sell you things.
The reason they want to track what you look at and compare it to your register is for their direct targetting of ads and other services.
If they made it free they could still get this information (geographic demographics) by looking at the IP logs.
IBM did this when they launched their free patent database and made it available for everyone to search (lo and behold now IBM knows what stuff your companies are working on... (grin)) Which, of course, the execs did not like when I pointed that out to them.
1) Requested entry of information the consumer would not wish to give out.
2) Constant re-entry of personal information which would be freely given by the consumer.
Issue 1 is best handled with a pseudonym ('I am Dash Riprock').
Issue 2 is the current holy grail for the online business and consumer. MS has Passport, and the others have the Liberty Alliance.
You Choose (viva libre!!!)
Oh well, I guess these newspapers of record don't like being linked to or read. They just don't get it.
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
Is it possible to create a custom cookie or family of cookies that create the illusion that you have an online subscription to these places? I've seen some stories include a generic slashdot login and if we could compile those into one or several cookies, we would never have to deal with it again. Some research would need to be done so we could effectively emulate the actual cookies from the NYT and other reg. required sites. If accomplished, we simply download a txt file or zip file with a couple dozen txt files and place them in our browsers cookie folder.
"The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his." - Patton
I've heard that the following makes for a good fake name and address to use:
Alan Ralsky
6747 Minnow Pond Drive
West Bloomfield, MI 48322
And registering for things on the internet for me!
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.
Scares most junk mail off.
I have no big problem with regging for sites that I'll likely hit more than once. But I'm certainly not going to use my real info - I use a throwaway email address that I cycle out every few months depending on spam volume, and I fill in all the rest of the blanks with data that looks real enough that it won't get filtered out automatically.
Look, databases of your user data are only as valuable as the data is useful. The best way to protect privacy in the long term is to make selling information no longer profitable, because of the signal/noise ratio in the databases. I either use the address of a church of scientology in Austin, TX (those guys just bug me), or I gen one with a perl script I wrote a few years back. I've got a datafile with all zipcodes in use, with the associated city, state, and phone area code. That's the mechanism most filters use to catch fake data, so as long as those fields match up your bogus info will likely sneak through. Add in a random generator of good looking fake names, ages, and street addresses, and you're good to go. Fill thoses databases with likely looking crap enough times, and the market for the databases will dry up - they just won't be worth anything. Make capitalism work for you.
Sure, you could just use the address for any SCO or MS office in the world, but repeats would start to get noticed and filtered. The key is to be sneaky.
-reemul
You're just jealous 'cuz the voices talk to *me*
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.
Best Slashdot Co
If you call on the phone to ask a price on ... lets say, new breaks.
Note to self: avoid Strauss Auto.
If you see a link on Slashdot or Fark for an interesting news story on the newspaper for a city you don't live in, the advertisements on the website (their key source of revenue, far and away surpassing paid subscriptions of any kind) will likely not be relevant to you, as they are tailored for local readers. And since you're just flying by, you're going to ignore the ads anyhow.
You will click the link, read the story (and probably not even notice the newspaper that is reporting it), and then click "back" when you're done.
You are not entitled to access the website free of any kind of hinderances like registration -- ESPECIALLY if the likelihood of you clicking on an advertisement is infinitesimally small. The "Boston Picayune", as it were, is not responsible in any way for shelling out for bandwidth and a web staff so that you can read neat news stories without compensating them in any way whatsover.
audioLibre - freedom of music
Use BugMeNot
There's even a FireFox extension that will look up a login for you.
The idea is to have survivable communications after a nuclear war. Well, that's why US DoD funded it, anyway.
Best Slashdot Co
Unfortunately, once I managed to stop transmitting my IP address I was unable to go anywhere...
I'm typing this on a computer behind a NAT router, and no public web site sees my private IP address. To take it one step further, you can sign up for one of those anonymizing web proxies, and the web sites you visit won't even see your ISP-assigned IP address.
Firefox
:->
Bugmenot extension
Adblock extension
No targeted ads.. hell, no ads AT ALL once you configure it (very easy). And you get past those annoying website registrations.
If it weren't for these features, I'd be using IE right now
I am the maverick of Slashdot
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
Why bother with the Google toolbar? I've been using Gator for that since Windows 95!
we all get back to the good old tradition of the 90's where every page/service had a cypherpunk/cypherpunk login/pass pair? :-)
The convenience you describe hasn't come to pass because Microsoft overcharged for this service.
Dear Yetta has been providing me with registration services for years now. She never complains about spam or junk, and she lives right next door to the White House.
DUCT TAPE: The Election Supervisors' Secret Weapon
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?
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. The technology obviously exists, and all it does is connect a browser with a set of preferences, not a person.
As it is, all the NYT knows about me is that Blonzo T. Yermalloy lives in Anytown, PA. (I live on 1234 No. Fucking way.) How does that help at all? Especially when compared to the alternative?
Another one bites the dust
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.
Entirely true. And the way to make them realize it doesn't make sense is to feed in bogus data and use sites like bugmenot.com to feed them bad statistics and so forth.
When the statistics they get from the data are heavily skewed and they realize that, then they might realize that the whole thing is worthless.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Good advertising, on the other hand, I read. The Microcenter circular gets stashed in the loo for cover-to-cover perusal.
What is the difference?
- Bad advertising is misdirected. I am not ever likely to purchase the product. Bad advertising is cheaply made and distributed scattershot.
- Good advertising is well-made and for something I may be interested in purchasing, or at least knowing more about.
If I grimly refuse to give any useful information to advertisers, I just guarantee myself a lot more bad advertising. For heaven's sakes, people, NY Times isn't asking to know what you did last night with whom using what (Colonel Mustard in the Library with a Lead Pipe, if you must know). It's not an invasion of privacy to tell someone your zip code. And who knows - the next product or service advertised might be for something you (as opposed to your doppelganger in 90210) might be interested in.
-- Don't change horsemen mid-apocalypse!
From the perspective of the end user, yes, registration is rediculous and unnecessary. However, from the perspective of the publisher registration is the first of many steps leading to a pay only system. At some point, enough revenue has to be generated to pay for all the hosting infrastructure
Reading your post as a reply to its parent implies that you think Anonymous Coward can build up karma. That wasn't what you were actually trying to say, was it?
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.
--
make install -not war
The Day Pass is a good strategy. Am certain they stream ads based on demography. When a reader expresses interest in an article, it may be reasonable (from an advertisement perspective) to assume that he would be interested in things connected with the article. So, put an ad that makes sense and set the information free.
I haven't yet seen anyone other than salon following this.
Science as a way of life.
Bug Me Not
He just wants to be Lance Armstrong.
© 2004 The SCO Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
The reason for all this registration nonsense is targeted advertising. So ditch the registration page, which I'm pretty sure everyone fills with junk data, many times thus skewing thier stats.
Replace the reg page with one select box with items like "IT Products" or "Healthcare" or "Appendige Enlargement" and let me HELP the online newspaper by providing 1) Targeted Adverts that I genuinly MAY be interested in and 2) Specific, targeted Ads. They dont NEED or particulary WANT my reg details, so skip the whole process!
This provides us with access to their content and provides them with accurate stats and targeted Ads.
But this may make too much sense, so roll on Passport...
Ad banners aren't paying anymore, so many sites are eploring alternate methods of
income. Registration is just this week's meme. It won't last, unless they are
producing valuable content. (Content that you can't get anywhere else.)
The process is not sustainable in the long term. For me, the internet is defined thusly:
If google can't find it, it's not there. If I have to jump through hoops to get
it, it's not there.
Why? Because I have the attention span of a gnat. If it taked more than 30
seconds to get to their content, I probably won't finish it. I don't need to
follow their trail of breadcrumbs, when it will be available from dozens, if
not hundreds of other sites.
Google may have a referrer link, bugmenot may have a fake login, or a
slashdotter or blogger will have posted most (or all) of the article
somewhere else. All of these will be easier to find than filling out their
registration form (and often waiting for a confirmation email to click on).
And I know I'm not alone in this. That's why the bloggers or slashdotters
post because they got it easy (or want to link- or karma-whore). The rest
of the internet outnumbers NYTs staff. We'll find an easy way to do it.
Hell, that's why most commercials are only 30 seconds. Welcome to ADD nation.
Do they ask for the same info when you walk up to a news stand and buy a newspaper? No! Why? Because it would be a pain in the a$$ and no one would want to take the time to fill out the info, they'd be concerned about telemarket & junk mail, and privacy.
My point is, they don't make you waste 5 minutes to give them this info to buy a regular paper, why make us do it online? We just want fast news. The regular, non targeted ads (just like in the print edition), will do just fine.
Thank you.
© 2004 The SCO Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
It's amazing how popular this tawdry nerd rag has become. Bless its pointed little head.
--
make install -not war
Why should I jump through hoops to get biased and/or badly researched summaries of what somebody deems is "newsworthy" when I can go to any number of places and get biased and/or badly researched summaries of what somebody deems is "newsworthy" for free?
I guess I'm pretty cynical, but it's all crap anyway. Who says that the NYT (for example) spin on a news story is of higher quality than some other news site?
Any subject that interests you should be researched on multiple sites anyway, in my opinion.
There...much better. ;-)
This space intentionally left blank.
1) Go to your favorite news site that requires a login. ... or the email witha "!" appended... or a "1"... etc.
2) Look on the "About Us" page for staff names and emails.
3) Use one of thise emails and the persons first name as a password
It works... often.
A website called BugMeNot which was recently featured in Time magazine, has a pretty big database of passwords and logins for a lot of sites. http://www.bugmenot.com/
Fighting ignorance with ignorance.
Read the article
Web Services that require registration use that information to: 1. Target online advertising towards based on reading habits.
2. Sell the information to other companies, based on viewing habits.
3. They can do demographics based on who actually reads what articles. Sort of like an instant survey based on reading habits.
4. They want to control who reads their stories, so web robots and other programs cannot steal stories without using an account to verify who they are.
The problem is that many use bogus info to register an account. For example, my alias, Orion Blastar, I use to register with various services. I use a real phone number and address, but I add an extra line to my address to tell me who got the information. So I can tell if Microsoft, NYT, etc sold my info to another company without my permission. I always check that "no" box to contact third parties and special offers. Yet I still get spam and postal mailings. Many Big Brother companies think that Orion Blastar exists for real, and I even get loan offers and credit card offers with rates lower than my real name can get, I just shread those and throw them away. Orion Blastar is not just my alias, but also my alter ego, another side of my personality, that somehow got a presense in the real world.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
"The other is a news article, which you just read, your identity doesn't affect the content of the article... no reason for registration as far as user is concerned.. Yet, these sites force you to register.."
Look up the word "demographics".
www.bugmenot.com
Just enter the web site you're interested in and it will return a user name and password. Great stuff.
"Capital punishment makes the state into a murderer. Imprisonment makes the state into a gay dungeon-master"
What do you mean? The grandparent was posted by NaCh0 (6124), not by Anonymous Coward. NaCh0 can gain karma by posting more. As s/he should know, having a join number in the four digits.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I used to work at a Customer Service center for Whirlpool/Kitchenaide in Knoxville, and We'd verify the phone number and ask pertinant information about the customer.
Except, lots of people were reluctant with such data. "Why do you need my address"? "Why do you need my name?".. etc.. Some forms were neccessary, IE model number, serial.. but some where required simply becaused the software NEEDed something in that box so that I could close the damn prompt.
I was somewhat linient to customers, because frankly, Service is not about helping, but about getting the customer off the phone as soon as possible.
I used to work for Radio Shack. I should point out that giving the poor schmuck at the counter a hard time doesn't do any good. People I knew were fired for not having a high enough name & address percentage -- or for not asking at all when a mystery shopper checked. Since the job market was in the toilet at the time, it wasn't worth the risk. The customer might give you a rough time, but the company was gonna fire your ass. My pet peeve: every time that I buy something from Barnes & Noble, the sales clerk harasses me to buy their $25 discount card. It has cost them thousands of dollars worth of my business, since I now shop at Border's if I need a brick-and-mortar superstore, or amazon.com if I can wait a couple of days.
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.
no corporation will agree to that - it doesn't offer anyone an advantage. think about this from the perspective of a single media corp: would you agree to something that doesn't offer you an advantage if you can instead screw over the people who you want to consume your media?
while yes, it would be very nice to have a one-time, net-wide registration, the only way that would be possile is for (naturally) a fee. once they find out that people will pay for that, we'll have to pay to access the site, as well (on top of the one-time registration host's fee).
good idea, but will never work.
"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."
I think the solution is the same one as for getting a dead tree edition. Buy a PDF subscription delivered via E-Mail. Keep the free, but neuter it down. A win, win for everyone concerned. The only one's who lose are the freeloaders clogging the Internet.
Just because it is the publisher's right to do something, it doesn't mean that what they are doing is *good* or even *non-harmful*.
My biggest beef with these registration sites is that they break the web: imagine if you had to keep track of an individual account for *EVERY* website you visited - even the ones that you were idly browsing through looking for information.
Sure, it is the publisher's "sole prerogative" not to do something idiotic, but it is also my perogative to shout that they're doing idiotic things as loudly as I can, (by regestering at nytimes as Marge Simpson, for example), and maybe they'll hear.
By that same token, a lot of retail stores ask for information too (like a phone number or a zip code).
You have to right to tell them, "no," however.
With the online registration *required*, you get no such option.
Diplomacy is the art of saying, "Nice doggie!" until you can find a rock.
Are you kidding?
Just because a search engine can't easily crawl it doesn't mean people don't link to NYT stories all the time in blogs, IMs, etc, or read the page. This is silly.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
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.
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
In which case the answer is Here. You're right- I took a joke as a real question, and looked at the author as well, where if I had read the text...I still wouldn't have got the joke but I would have provided the above link.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
"Ok, fine ... but I get my news from other free sites. Why do I need them ?"
Well considering what the articles about. I'd say that the "free well" is gradually going to dry up. That's obviously going to change the answer to your question. It's nice to belive in a world that everything should be free, but when idealism meets reality? Reality usually wins.
I have no problem registering with many of these sites that provide content in either a newspaper of forum-like format. This is many orders of magnitude better than having to deal with this information in its dead-tree form. Information how I want it formatted and nothing extra to leaf through. On top of all this a free reg is a lot better than the unworkable micropayment crap that noone has been able to get working.
While I agree with your main point, I have to challenge your conventional wisdom of TANSTAAFL ("There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"). Newton's second law only applies to closed systems. The Earth is not a closed system. Life (at least, most terrestrial life) is solar powered, either directly or indirectly. Life is a free lunch. :)
:)
:)
Tell a tree there ain't no free lunch, and the tree would laugh at you if it could (and if it could be bothered to care about your quirky human misperceptions).
There may be no such thing as perpetual motion, but if I build a machine that'll keep running until the Sun burns out, that's probably perpetual enough for most people alive today!
At a vending machine you're buying $0.25 worth of paper with your quarter. The information printed on that paper is free, or rather, paid by the ads.
I dont mind it but one thing that kills me about the entire thing is that theres no way you can put this into a cookie that stays for any period of time. Just about every single site that does this only keeps the cookie for a day forceing you to log in every day or if they do save your info they dont save all of it. The AJC for example, it saves your first name and your email address, you still have to put your password in EVERY DAY. you cant cheat and use an auto logon as every logon page is slightly different. I read the paper online because I dont have time to read the real thing, this includes taking 30 seconds out of my day to remember what username I used and what password I used daily for a paragraph of info!
After all, providing false information could be declared as getting unauthorized access to copyrighted information...
Don't laugh at the thought. We do live in a world in which the PATRIOT act has been used to investigate strip club owners.
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.
Unfortunately, when you register, you're handing over a LOT more than the value of the content. You're handing them information which indentifies you. It's information they can use to track what you read, and then sold to other parties, who then also have your information. This also becomes information which can be subpoenaed in a court of law, as well as information that can end up as yet one more item to add to a growing list of ways you can be profiled.
When you compare this to the cost of going down to a newsstand and paying $.50, the newsstand option suddenly looks MUCH more attractive.
(not the name of anyone living there)
how can you be so sure?
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
"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." That's what Microsoft has been trying to do with .NET passports for a long time. We see how well that flew.
People are still going to fake the information too.
Also, isn't it kind of obvious that these sites want your information for advertising/money purposes? I mean, it might be handy to know who your audience is, but it's not a large enough issue to lock out your audience by requiring registration.
.. for some I have heard the motivation is they don't get someone else's copyrighted content spidered/mirrored if they hide behind a reg page.
I'm not saying it's a good idea. So what response do you give the hypothetical PHB who says "I'm scared that copyrighted material will get spidered?" And "DMCA sucks" is usually not a good enough answer for most bosses.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
I felt like I walked past a 20-ft high billboard emblazoned with "WE WILL BURY YOU!" or something. Truly an awesome nick.
But, they can track your position!!
Oh no, what-do-I-do-now?
Do? it's too late to do anything! muahahahha!
It's JIMMY thudpucker, you barbarian!
Volunteer personal info, because targetted ads are more pleasant and useful than scattergun ads! (think Google adwords and Amazon suggestions).
This is an incentive for readers to volunteer personal information, at the level they are comfortable with - this self-selected data is more accurate.
I'm seeing ads that know I'm in Melbourne - and I pay more attention to them). This is key to Google's revenue model (Adwords targetting), and one of the great promises of the internet. Amazon's profile of your interests is seen as a benefit - I haven't heard complaints of that as an invasion of privacy.
Registration is not equivalent to purchase price, as that price covers printing/distribution, which are not incurred by internet editions (acknowledgment: the parent poster's insight)
The key is to let the user *choose* the level of personalization - eg: my city, but not my name or my income. This results in *much* more accurate data.... BUT news providers can not afford to value accuracy until their advertisers value it - until then, it's a waste of their effort.
I think the industry is too immature at present for advertisers to worry about accuracy... they are concerned with more basic stuff, like popularity of the website, and converting leads into sales.... "Does this thing actually work?" it's *still* a whole new ballgame for most advertizers. Accuracy is definitely second to these basics.... Once accuracy is valued, evidence of it will be required (but not at first - initially, voluntary data is self-evidently more accurate than bugmenot data etc).
sig without a cause
Says hundreds of logged in /. Users...
:P
You can post anonymously, read anonymously. So why register even for slashdot? Maybe what NYT really needs is a Karma system to keep all you privacy nuts logging in.
I don't want to have to go to a friggin' web-site to get the fake password info for the site I wanted to go to int he first place.
I sure as heck don't want to install a plugin for my browser which will only conveniently handle those sites.
One of Canada's national newspapers just went to a registration only model. I sent them an "I'm leaving and here is why" message from their feedback page and found another news service.
Chances are, the company won't care that I wasn't willing to register to keep getting their stuff free.
I get awful tired of every site on the internet thinking I give a shit enough to register, signup, create a profile, remeber the damned thing, and any of a billion other stupid steps.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Unless you pay with plastic. You're name's on the card. They may not have your address, but they know who you are, and what you've been spending at what stores.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
I have found at least one online newpaper that won't accept 1900 as a date of birth (can't recall which one now).
Apparently, elderly people are not allowed to use the Internet!
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Well, since she's dead (at 79), I don't imagine she'll care much about that.
I've registered for the New York Times, Washington Post, the Belo conglomerate (Dallas Morning News etc.). These sites ask for email address and a small amount of info. Yes, it is annoying, but I can live with it.
But check out the registration for the Miami Herald. They want:
But even if you do not opt in to receive emails for any "newsletters", "special deals" or "discount" emails, the fine print says that:
Come on now, I love Dave Barry, but there is no way I'm going to give them permission to spam me!
Bugmenot plugin for Mozilla - http://bugmenot.mozdev.org/
Strauss Auto Breaks, guaranteed to be delivered broken.
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.
If you're looking for Eisenhower's old stomping ground, it's 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW. 1600 Pennsylvania SE is probably not a place you want to be (assuming it exists).
I used to give the White House address to Radio Shack drones; they never caught it.
Especially pissy mac users.
(posted anon 'cuz I reached my 2 post/day limit)
...(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.
Slashdot Eds Link Anonymous Posts With Logged Posts
They Are Vermin Feeding On Each Other's Feces.
I Hate \.
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.
Not that this wasn't entirely predictable.
Okay, they want to do targeting advertisements. Then why do they need...
...my name? They only need this if they want to track what content I, personally, am reading.
...my home address? They only need this to send me junkmail and sell my address. They might want to know about where I live for demographical purposes, but they certainly don't need my house number and street name for targeted ads.
...my phone number? If they are just using it for demographics all they should need is my area code and maybe my prefix. Nope, they're selling this, too. Or at least using it to sell subscriptions.
...my DOB? Give me a break. That combined with my current address, phone, and name, all an identity theft needs at this point is my SSN. If they want to target to my age group, ask my age, or at most, the year of my birth. You don't need to know the exact date I was born.
Yours sincerely,
Elwood Blues
1060 W Addison
Chicago, IL 60613
require registration for full access. In this case full access is a default post score of 1.
Er, no, full access is the ùbility to access all parts of the site. Which is granted to all anonymous readers. Hell, unregistered readers can even post freely in all discussions, though with lower visibility than registered users.
A default post score of 1 is a reward for registering, just as a default post score of 2 is a reward for participating and gaining positive karma. That has nothing at all to do with access. You can read everything on slashdot without registering, unlike the NYT.
You can't take the sky from me...
Ah RadioShack home of overpriced components. I don't know about elsewhere, but in MN all of the RadioShacks here have swept all of their component wares into unkempt drawers. (Not like you could go in and ask for a germanium diode before, but now the most important customer (and in an inexhastable supply at that) is the cell phone buyer. :(
I while back I confronted a salesperson after being ask (yet again) for all of my personal info. There were at least 3 stores in the area and all of them had to ask me the same crap. I had finally reached my breaking point and asked rather tearsly why a company as big as RadioShack couldn't just pool the stores information so at the very least I only had to answer the grand interrogation once. His response was, (and in a rather patronizing, matter of fact voice) "Do you know how big of a network they would need to do that?" To which I of course smuggly replied "I think the Internet might be big enough."
I suppose the bright side was that it was quite easy with the disorganization to go around to each RadioShack, ask for a part (I knew) they didn't have on hand, and then after asking to see the catalog being able to ask again (for the first time) "What's this barcode for? Oh really, CueCat, huh? How much do those run you?"
"Free you say. Really?"
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. It would be easier for both user and content provider than having a username and password, and gets nearly as much accomplished.
G
What the big media sites should be worried about is the influence of blogs on Google ratings. If people are put out by having to register for sites like NYTimes, bloggers will link to open access sites. This will cause a drop in NYTimes' Google score, and that'll cost them advertising money.
see How Weblogs Influence A Billion Google Searches A Week
The Trouble with Blogs
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Everytime I encounter a site where I need to log in (except /.), I go to Bug me not and get a user id/password that is already set up. For most sites, this works well.
You know they are tracking usage statistics so by using someone elses account their tracking is not as accurrate....to which I say good. That's what they get.
Linens and Things does that shit too. I can believe the story a Slashdotter here said about Radio Shack using that info to mail flyers, but Linens and Things?
Or, just read the article and get the same link, right on page 1.
Create a script to automatically create a temp account, fill in the form with randomly generated name, phone number, etc., download the news page, and strip out the ads and javascript bullshit.
Only in the perverse little world of Slashdot could pandering "editors" (I use the term reluctantly because to connect Slashdot with journalism slanders that profession) label registration as a rights issue.
No one has a right to read anything posted on the web unless the poster wants you to read it. If they want to control, or identify, or count, or sell to, their readers, that's their right.
You wanna borrow a book from your public library? Well, first you need to sign up with the library. When are we gonna see Slashdot leading the charge against that particular windmill?
Bitchin' and moanin' from Slashdot weenies because the NYT wants them to login merits contempt.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Dr. Rusty Shackleford
319 Rainey
Arlen, TX 78701
You can read everything on slashdot without registering
Yes, but at what cost? I am of the opinion that by the end of 2005 Slashdot will resemble IGN.com. We already have that annoying roll-over Dell Flash ad. It's not that big of a step to go to full-page, page-loading, or even audio/video ads.
Also, how long do you think it will last without mandatory registration to read full stories or post comments? Bandwidth isn't free and OSDN isn't in the business of losing money. Hell, OSDN actively encourages outsourcing (they sell products in this area). I know how they could save some money in the short run, though. Just fire those timothy and michael faggots.
Fox news still free
...my boss's name, address and telephone. It's always so amusing to hear him at our Monday Morning Meetings complain about all the junkmail and sales calls he's been getting recently and hasn't a clue why he's getting inundated by it. Me... I always act so innocent and astounded at his lamentations.
Wow, I haven't seen the need for any germanium diodes since the days when RatShack still used to sell tubes (valves, for you Brits) with the cheezy gold-plated pins and lifetime warrantees (you needed that). You must be old too!
Normally to lie is considered immoral.
In this context to lie may be a moral imperative.
Stop shopping at stores that want personal, non germane information AND you money in order to buy stuff from them.
If enough people do this, this annoying, inconvenient, intrusive practice will stop--one store or chain of stores at a time....
Because Web visitors get the same product for free that paper-and-ink readers pay for, news publishers believe it's only fair they provide something in return.
If the page with the content has just ONE ad on it, am I truly getting the content for free? That's a ruse.
And don't get me started on the "printer friendly" pages with a big flash ad, which often gets printed alone, instead of the content I want to print in the first place.
Global warming is neither science, nor politics. It is a religion.
I spend waaaay too much time in auto parts stores. I *always* give my correct address. Usually, I only need to give it to them the first time, then I'm in the computer. Why do I do it? #1, since I do spend so much time & money there, I don't mind getting coupons from them. #2, and the biggest reason, they have a record that I bought a radiator with a life-time warranty. When the cheap-ass POS blows a year later, I can take it in, they look it up, see that I bought it from their chain, then give me a replacement. No receipt, not anything else is needed.
WTF can they do nefariously with my address? Send me more junk mail? The only junk mail that makes sense is auto-related, which not only do I not mind, I can actively use it. That's more useful than the produce coupons I get every week. I suppose they could sell my address to someone who's selling sewing supplies. Wouldn't make much financial sense for the buyer, though.
jred
I'm not a mechanic but I play one in my garage...
When you borrow a book from the library and don't return it on time, you are depriving other library users of the opportunity to use the book. If you lose or steal the book, it costs the library money.
Viewing a web page is obviously quite different.
The Customer Is Always Right.
Especially when he/she doesn't want to give out personal information for ridiculous sales or is in a hurry.
The clerks should take it up with management, because the customers will protect THEIR interests. To "give in" to unwanted commercials, killing millions of trees in the process, just so that a few can have a mostly-hated job and more insanity is spread out across the globe, is not the right thing to do.
I do sympathize that it's hard to be between the wood and the bark though.
Giving in easily will just support the madness.
>>" Viewing a web page is obviously quite different.
Which means...what? That registration is some kind of venal sin? Other than Slashdot paranoia, what's fueling this nutty opposition to reigstration?
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I tend to use zip code of 12345, which corresponds to Virginia Beach, VA for the ones that require addresses
I blogged on this myself after reading a different Wired News article on how the majority of online news readers are men:a re-supposedly-men.html
http://schweitn.blogspot.com/2004/08/web-readers-
Here is the relevent excerpt:
I'll go one step further. Being a Software Engineer, I commonly have to deal with customers that are having problems with systems. One of the more common problems I face is what I call the "Make It Go Away Syndrome". This is where an error message pops up on the screen, and the user will simply click Ok, or Cancel, without even looking at the message or writing it down, just to make it go away. Could this not be happening when it comes to online registration forms? Even if users aren't trying to lie, they might just be filling in the bare minimum to continue. Since your sex is usually presented in a drop down combo box, with male usually being the first choice, a woman who just wants to get past the form may not change the setting, fill in the other required boxes, and click ok. Suddenly she is a man to that website collecting statistics.
Any thoughts?
No. All I'm saying is that a library lending out physical material has a good reason in the public interest for requiring registration: to ensure that they can get it back.
Requiring registration to read a website is solely for private interests, not to protect other readers' rights.
Other than Slashdot paranoia, what's fueling this nutty opposition to reigstration?
Concerns about spam and loss of privacy.
Libraries don't need to depend on a public interest to justify registering people. They just need to get their books back. In addition, a lending library does not have to be "free". A library can quite easily charge a subscription fee, in which case registration would be identicalto membership.
The same applies to online sites that require registration. They have no public interest to bear in mind. They are private enterprises which are on the web to further their own interests.
No one is compelled to use these sites, and no one is compelled to register. The power to deal with this issue is in the hands of the people complaining about registration. If enough people avoid these sites, they will alter their entry requirements.
In the meantime, this appears to me to be a case of a minority trying to foster legislation to adcance their own speical interest.
If these sites charged a subscription fee, your concerns about spam and privacy would persist, but I suspect most of the complaints would go silent.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
OK, so then don't do it. But don't get mad that they asked. It's sort of like getting pissed off that Bentley "dares" to charge $300,000 for a car. If no one wanted the car, they'd drop the price or go out of business. That's their option. No one's forcing you to buy the car (or read the paper). That's your option.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach