The New York Times has an article on “free offers” on Web sites that turn out to be something else:
I could picture my husband buying tickets online. I could imagine one of those annoying direct-marketing offers popping up. I could even picture him clicking on it. But I couldn’t see him entering a credit card to subscribe.
It turned out he didn’t have to. Tempted by a $10 cash-back award offer (“Good for your next Fandango purchase!”), he had typed in his e-mail address.
Unfortunately, he skipped over the fine print: “By entering my e-mail address as my electronic signature and clicking yes, I authorize Fandango to securely transfer my name, address and credit or debit card information to Reservation Rewards for billing and benefit processing.”
Read the whole article to get both sides of the story. As far as I’m concerned, Webloyalty is sleazy.
April 19, 2007 at 4:17 pm
…and use firefox’s “Adblock Plus”.
April 23, 2007 at 12:57 am
A similar popup was given to me the last time I used Fandango too, but it didn’t survive my click-to-kill-popup instinct long enough for me to remember if it was the same one.
Adrian is right.
April 23, 2007 at 10:51 am
The company that is really sleazy here is Fandango, who’s trading on their credibility to let you be ripped off by one of their partners.
They’re giving away your credit card info based on a very legally questionable “contract”