Confession: I lied, and it was justified
What’s wrong with this picture?
Everything. Let me explain.
For one, I never should have seen this, the registration screen for the San Jose Mercury News site. But today I ended up here, even though I already had an account in Knight Ridder’s database (KR, which owns the Merc, keeps a single database of users for all its sites). Had I logged in from home, my browser would have been recognized automatically, but I was at work, and my password — the standard one I use for most sites when I don’t care about security — wouldn’t take. Because the login process is transparent when I’m at home, I couldn’t remember how long the Mercury News had been requiring registration and, come to think of it, I wasn’t even positive that I had an account.
So I filled out the registration form — and lied. But my deceit has weighed on my conscience all day, so I have to come clean and tell you why I did it, and why I shouldn’t have had to. Because I work in online news, I understand the need to have as much useful demographic information on visitors as possible, mainly in order to sell targeted advertising. So I will gladly (and honestly) supply such information as birth date, gender and ZIP code. I might even tell you what I do for a living or how much schooling I have. But I will not provide, for purposes of gaining access to a “free” site, personally identifiable information — no matter how nicely I am asked. This includes:
- My full name (I’d give my first name, perhaps)
- My address
- My telephone number (which the Merc didn’t ask for but other sites have required)
It takes a lot of gall to request this information in the first place, but it’s just laughable to think that people will answer honestly. The most frequently used excuse for this practice is the need to compare users’ contact information with newspaper subscription records in order to provide subscriber-only benefits online. To which I say: I have never subscribed to the Mercury News and I likely never will. If I do and the paper offers some online perk to subscribers only, then — maybe —