Thursday, June 09, 2005

Is it already a trend?

Like many people, I have an e-mail address. Several, actually. And while it's a light load, I get quite a bit of spam, just like everybody else. So, I've become quite sensitive about giving out my e-mail address.

This morning, I heard a commercial for a new contest from a large non-alcoholic beverage vendor (Coca-Cola). The contest itself is around the Dasani bottled water line. One of the requirements for entering the contest is a "valid e-mail address".

WTF?

So they can send you more marketing crap, more unsolicited e-mail. Just because I want to enter a contest does NOT mean I want to receive a bunch of e-mail from anybody.

Now, I've been on the intarweb long enough to know of websites that want your e-mail address for marketing, as well as membership verification. But this real-life contest (as opposed to intarweb only) requiring a valid e-mail address to enter. I say again: "WTF?" And yet, by the fine print, I'm sure it says in there somewhere that "no e-mail, no entry".

It just occurs to me that this sort of contest is biased in another direction, too.

If, like a large majority of the contry, you don't even have an e-mail address, you are not qualified to enter the contest!

Isn't that unfair discrimination?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

eh, f*** the spammies, chunkie. I'd be surprised if you didn't have a circular email account. Mine's at hotmail. Let micro$oft deal with the spam!

So.....will this supplant the Rancho?