Imagine that you had a business that sold oh, let’s say plumbing equipment. So if someone has plumbing problems they can just look you up in the phone book. Except you don’t want potential customers to be able to do that without first giving you all kinds of personal information like name, address, phone number, income, what kind of plumbing they enjoy, favorite boy band, etc. You know, in case you need it. So your name isn’t in the phone book. Neither can people come to your store (if they’re lucky enough to stumble upon it) in person and get in without exchanging all that information for a secret password. Oh, and there’s also another plumbing store every ten feet that does NOT require any of this at all.
Seem like a weird way to run a business? Someone should mention it to places like the New York Times Online, who according to this Wired.com article, are digging a digital hole by requiring you to register with them before viewing their online content. Registering is usually free, but requires you to give up personal information that they can presumably rent/sell to spammers or use to spam you themselves. Besides the fact that a lot of people apparently give bogus data, this hurts businesses because search engines like Google are starting to omit from its searches content that’s behind registration walls.
So if the Internet’s most important search engine ignores your site, how much does that hurt even someone like the New York Times Online?
The Wired article also mentions the rise of many technologies people are using to circumvent these obstacles, like the BugMeNot plugin for FireFox, which automatically generates logins for these sites without your having to go through the invasive hoops. I use it, and it works great.
Now, I know this is a complex issue. Many sites intend to use that personal information to better serve their customers. When I was at GameSpy we started doing this with GameSpy ID. We said we wanted to use the demographic information to get a better idea of who was using our sites and services. We wanted to avoid showing inappropriate advertisements (like ones for beer) to people who told us they were under 21. And we wanted to target ads based on where people said they lived (like a special on DSL to people living in a particular service area). These aren’t novel ideas; I imagine they’ve occurred to most companies like ours.
Problem is, those kind of intentions are great, but I often wonder how well companies follow through with them. We were pretty hit-and-miss at GameSpy, though we did as far as I know manage to avoid the temptation of selling or renting the lists to spammers. Other places, though, I don’t trust so much. And at least we never put text content behind a registration wall like the NYT Online is doing. That seems like suicide when Google stops returning your site on searches, especially when there are a hundred other competitors with most of the same information.
I just wish there were a plugin I could use offline when merchants ask me for personal information. A few weeks ago I went to Lowes to buy some furnace filters. I thought that I understood the script for buying furnace filters pretty well:
- Go to store
- Find filters (make sure they’re the right dimensions so you don’t have to hack them down to size like last time)
- Take them to the register
- Pay for them
- Do a happy dance
- Leave store
The gal at the register was working from a different script, though. When it came time to pay, she turned to me and said, “Can I have your phone number, please?”
I just kind of stared at her. “Why?” I asked after a moment.
“We need it to help serve you better,” she said.
At this point I felt like messing with her, especially since there was no one in line behind me. “Area code six one nine,” I began.
“Six one nine,” she echoed.
“Two four five,”
“Two four five,”
“Six six,”
“Six six,”
“Three seven two.”
“Three seven …what?” At this point she broke off and looked at me blankly. I stared back. “What?” she repeated.
“Huh?” I said, continuing to stare at her in confusion.
“Wait, wait,” she said, smacking the delete key on the register. “Let’s start over.”
“Okay,” I said. “Area code eight five eight,”
At this point she slapped the register shut and handed me my receipt. “Thank you, sir. Have a nice day.”
And you know what? I did.
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