Sunday, March 23, 2008

What a Free iPod Might Cost?

I was testing a Facebook application of which I will write in a future post. Today I want to let you know what happens after that.

The last screen was typical prose 'This is what you can also do with this awesome application' and what caught my eyes was the red flashing "You Are A Winner! You just WON one of 12 iPod touches given out today!" and normal Facebook button to "Get your Prize".

O hey, who wouldn't want to have another iPod? My brain wasn't as fast on the pick-up as I would have wanted it to be. Why would I, who never wins anything in a raffle, be the one of 12 winning an iPod in a social network of 66 million?
My only excuse is that I was still very curious, so I clicked on it. Now I have left Facebook entirely and it was all made look pretty clean and focused, "Test and Keep an iPod Touch! Give us your e-mail address and claim your prize." with "Delivered by FedEx" Button and all. For these occasions I have a "IknowIsubscribedToSpam" e-mail address, which I put in there and on the next page, they asked me for my mailing address and phone number. And of course, I would need to give them all that information, if the iPod-Touch should ever arrive at my home, right? Alright, I sat up straight and went through typing in my information into the fields on the screen.

I read carefully through the options next to the checked boxes underneath the form. It was a list offering text messages on my cellphone, and more messages from other partner firms and so on. And I unchecked all of them, except my agreement to the site policy and the privacy policy. This is usual procedure and I am always trying to avoid exponentially increasing the spam. Then I was ready to click on the "Click here to continue" button, when I looked at the text printed right above it, which was very neutrally formatted like the other instruction on the form that make you just fill in the right information:

"By clicking on the "Continue" above I am requesting to be contacted by CustomerXXXX.com (name changed, put in your most favorite customer direct savings company) offer sponsors and marketing partners regardless of any DNC List registration."

What does DNC mean? It's an acronym for "Do-Not-Call-List". And it finally registered! What a sneaky way! In other words, this is an information collection page, where those direct mailing and telemarketers collect information of people, and then they will cross-reference it against the "Do-Not-Call-Lists" around the nation and kick all the people off, who clicked "continue". They then will share that information with other marketing companies and then you are the fat prize for them:
First they think you gave them the permission to give you unsolicited phone calls, despite the fact that your information is listed on a Do-not-call-list, then they have an e-mail address AND a mailing address so they can cross reference now every data they might have with your mailing address and link an e-mail address to it, which is quite an accomplishment, if you ever want to do target marketing by zip code via e-mail and do that via a Direct Advertising Company. And they know you are a live person, and no robot, and on of top of that your are an early adopter, because they found you on Facebook, and if that link really works, they know more about you than your mother will ever know.

Clicking on that button would have been "something stupid very fast". Now, I know that my information is out there, I have an ever growing spam folder to prove it. I have been on the Internet since 1996 quite visible and I have never hidden, and I have bought way too many things online that my e-mail address and mailing address couldn't be matched otherwise before. So I am the last person to lament about lost privacy on the Internet.

But the Do-not-call list? Come on , people! My husband and I have done a fine job keeping our phone lines free from solicitation calls ever since Florida and Federal DNC lists were implemented. Apart from the occasional non-profit organization none of those telemarketers disturbs us at dinner time or any other time. And here with one click our peace would have ended just because I like gadgets, especially new ones, and it would have come for free.

Now that would be a prize way to high for me and my marriage to pay.
Updated: April 10, 2008: edited for brevity - bph.

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