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WE DON'T COMB CHICKENS HERE - WE COOK 'EM!

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Monday, June 27, 2005

Knock-Knock. Who Are You?

Anyone who has spent more than a few minutes on the web has noticed that newspapers all over have begun locking their website doors to the free-surfing citizen. Publications like The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Sacramento Bee, Minneapolis Star-Tribune as well as a host of others have begun requiring visitors to submit varying amounts of personal information (called 'Registration') and in return, they allow you to access their site via a sign-in name ('Subscription').

NOTE: The Journal-Constitution will often let you browse a bit before whisking you away to their registration page…

One of the reasons these media outlets have resorted to this tactic is because, well, they are a business and they need advertisers to make their websites work. A newspaper can use a lot of bandwidth and if they serve a large market, that usage can get expensive. They need to have a way to make the effort pay for itself.

Now, in this information age in which we live, advertisers want to know who it is that visits these sites so they know how to target them with advertising designed to generate sales. So the advertisers tell the paper to either get as much information as you can from your web audience or we won’t pay you very much for the space to run our ads. The newspapers in turn, place registration gateways on their sites and make you submit stuff like your zip code, date of birth, an e-mail addy that can be spammed, your blood type and sexual preferences in return for the cyber subscription.

The whole thing is really intrusive, especially when you consider that the on-line version of a newspaper is most often still far less detailed than what you get in paper and ink. And what they often ask of the visitor in the way of personal details can sometimes be very personal. Who you are - is very valuable information and you shouldn’t be too willing to just sell the farm upon request.

But there is a way to beat this…

A website called ‘Bug Me Not’ (www.bugmenot.com) is a database of registrations for most every subscription based newspaper and by simply entering the name of the website you wish to access, they will give you both a log-in name and password for it. If by chance you do come across one they don’t yet have a file for, they will ask you to create an account there and then, share the sign-in information so others can use it. It’s a sort of community involvement thing for the electronic age.

The reason I am approaching this subject is because it would appear that our local newspaper, The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, has begun clearing some of their publicly accessible files and this could be a first step in creating such a gateway for us locals. On the other hand, they may just be clearing some disk space and opening some bandwidth… but if they ever do begin requiring subscriptions for their website, we will be sure to remind everyone of the Bug Me Not alternative.