Why Stop BugMeNot?

Found on Techdirt on Friday, 19 August 2005
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With newspapers increasingly seeing how the web helps them make money, you'd think they'd want more visitors, not fewer. That's why I've never quite understood registration only websites that consistently go through and weed out any BugMeNot logins. However, it looks like the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the site that just realized charging for content doesn't make sense, has come up with another way to stop BugMeNot logins. Instead of just requiring your email and password, they require your name as a third field. I've definitely seen other sites swap these two, so that all the BugMeNot entries that are set with usernames, and not email addresses, no longer work. Either way, all this does is piss off potential readers who won't bother going back and certainly won't send any more readers to the site. And, of course, for those few who actually do go through the registration process, you can bet they're going to give dirty data which is worse than useless in that it compromises the whole set of aggregate data the newspaper was trying to put together in the first place. Users don't feel they're getting anything of value in exchange for giving up their data and will often just go elsewhere.

I've used BugMeNot quite a few times myself, and have to say it's really helpful. I don't really see the idea behind newsites which want to force you to register; especially when the registration costs nothing. If the "membership" is free, why register at all? In all those cases where BugMeNot didn't help and I had to register, I filled in dummy data and used a throw-away email account to avoid potential spam. Now does this surprise anyone?