REGISTER NOW!
Remember what I said about companies requiring registration before they'll magnanimously allow you to enter their site? Well, here's one from a major newspaper.
Forget about "user friendly." They come right out and say: "Register Now." "It's Required." But all in caps – just so you know you ain't goin' nowhere until you cough up the goods.
So what are those goods? Let's take a look-see.
First: The Headline. Not a request – but a demand!
REGISTER NOW. IT'S FREE AND IT'S REQUIRED
They're not foolin' around! Do it – or get lost! Next – time to lay bear your soul, with a three step process.
STEP 1 OF 3
E-mail
Password
Password
OK – you say – that's not too bad. They're just trying to keep out the riffraff. Ah – but now we come to the next Step. Ten (count 'em) questions – eight of which are mandatory.
STEP 2 OF 3
Tell Us about Yourself
ZIP
COUNTRY
GENDER
YEAR OF BIRTH
TITLE
RESPONSIBLITY
INDUSTRY
SIZE
Send me e-mail advertising from us. (paraphrased)
Send me e-mail advertising from vendors. (paraphrased)
Get it? They're not asking you this information to better serve you news. They want it to better serve you advertisements!
Continuing on to Step 3, we have a list of fifteen items. You choose what e-mail alerts you want to come into your in-box.
STEP 3 OF 3
Select your e-mail
With 15 choices (I'm not going to bore you with all 15 choices.)
Next: HA HA – fooled you. There's yet another section where they want information. But this is blatantly commercial – so may be excused on the grounds that some company paid them for this space and it's not required to continue.
TERMS OF USE DISCLAIMER
At the very end, you'll have to agree to their Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. What exactly are these policies? They're five (!) pages of legalese, consisting of 3,306 words. Words in rather small print by the way.
One small example of what you're agreeing to (in the same size font used on their site):
"Finally, we reserve the right to send you offers and information about the XYZ Company and its affiliates. However, if you no longer wish to receive the foregoing, please contact Customer Care to request removal from this list. "
In other words, even if you don't want them sending you "SPAMATISING" and indicate that by not checking any of the opt-in boxes under STEP 2, they can go ahead and do it anyway. You then have to specifically write to them and OPT OUT!
A&P Whee OH! All this just to read an article or so.
How many potential first time log-ins (and potential ad customers) do you think they're losing? A whole bunch – I can guarantee you that.
