If it's Free, It's for Me!

Protecting Yourself when using free stuff on the Internet

The Internet is chock full of free stuff. While some freebies are hidden and some are easy to find, the Internet can provide us with electronic freebies, service freebies, tangible freebies, and sometimes, money! This lesson will explain what the freebie providers gain by giving away their stuff, what to be careful of, and where to find some free stuff.

I invented a term for this lesson: freebie provider. A freebie provider is any company which provides a free service or product over the Internet

How can things really be free?

How can the Boston Phoenix and the Improper Bostonian be free? How can the 80-page Wednesday edition of the Boston Globe only cost 50 cents when it is very costly to produce (they have to pay a staff of writers to write, graphic designers to design and layout, printers to print, a distributor to distribute the papers, etc.)? Because these papers reach tremendous amounts of people, they can charge alot of money for advertising. Advertisers pay bucket-loads of money to rent our attention. Even if their ads only get a quick glance, their message may be embedded in our minds and may lead to us to spend our money on their services or products.

The Internet is like a gigantic newspaper

We are consumers in the commercial world. Because we are on the Internet, marketers know that we, the Internet users, are educated and technology-oriented individuals. We are a target demographic for thousands of companies worldwide who would love a split second of our attention. In essence, nothing on the Internet is totally free. The freebies are usually compensation for our valuable attention. We spend our precious time absorbing their shameless promotional ads. Chances are, they may take our contact information and send us more ads in the future by email and regular mail. Or, we may even pursue their ads or utilize their pay services or products.

So it's not too painful after all . . .

Most Internet marketers are only doing what we are used to: flashing ads past our eyes similar to in a magazine or newspaper, hoping we'll be convinced to use their product or service.

Look advertisements in the face!

The best way to avoid advertisements is to know what they look like. If we know what they are and who they are, we can successfully avoid their traps and use the Internet freely.

The banner:

Banners have erupted as the primary way to advertise on the Internet. Usually, banners will be animated gif's (see the Netscape and browsers lesson if you need to review file types). They are usually found at the top or bottom of the web page, and are always hyperlinked to another page for additional information. Their goal is to catch the Internet user's attention and coerce them into visiting their website.Below are a few example banners with explanations of each. These examples are not linked to their intended advertising sources.

Simple banners:

This banner is a standard web banner advertisement. Its point is straightforward. Its goal is not misleading. This banner is apparently trying to get you to visit toysmart.com for your child shopping needs.

This simple button banner is petite in appearance, but does the job.

 

Deceptive banners:

This banner appears to have text-input boxes for the Internet user to calculate if they are overweight. The truth is that this does not calculate anything; when you attempt to click on the fake text-input boxes, you actually click on an image hyperlink and are taken to the advertiser's website.

This banner appears to be a computer dialog window. This may fool the Internet user into clicking on what appears to be buttons. In actuality, it is just an animated gif, which will bring you to a website involving casino games.

The pop-up window:

Perhaps one of the most angering and frustrating advertising strategies is the pop-up window. I'm not even going to bother showing an example because I don't wish to contribute to the "littering" of the Internet. You'll know a pop-up advertisement when you see one, and you probably already find them to be frustrating. The best method to battle pop-up advertisements is to close them (by using the close screen button in the upper right hand corner of the pop-up window). Unfortunately, invasive advertising strategies are here to stay both on and off the Internet. After using the Internet for a while, you'll be able to ignore banner and pop-up advertisements just as effectively as you ignore commercials on television and radio. Just keep in mind that if something viewed in a banner or pop-up advertisement seems too good to be true, it probably is. You probably did not win 1 million dollars like the deceptive banner advertisement say, so save your clicks on something more worthwhile.

Escape Junk e-mail!

Some Internet offers and free services require you submit a valid email address to use. They may even ask demographic questions like age, gender, hobbies/interests, etc.

Why?

They may plan to contact you at a later date through email, or they may sell your email address to another company for future email advertisements.

The consumer is favored!

The courts have ruled that it is unethical to use, share, or sell email addresses without the Internet user's knowledge or consent. Many freebie providers will have disclaimers written somewhere in the user agreement about how they plan to use demographic and contact information. All email advertisements have to have a method for the Internet user to unsubscribe. However, you should still be careful of offers that sound too good to be true!

Solutions to Remember:

Here are some tips to reduce junk mail volume in your email inbox.

1. "May we contact you . . ."
   If you are filling out a registration or information form online and a questions asks: May we contact you with additional offers?, answer NO. If you respond with a yes, you are allowing the freebie provider to send you junk mail, and possibly to share your email address to other commercial organizations (Be aware that the Yes box is often automatically checked, so don't forget to uncheck it).

2. Become familiar with the delete function in email.
   Most times, you can recognize junk mail and advertisements just by the sender and subject of the message in your email inbox. Just delete it and don't let it bother you. You will find that the delete function can be your best friend.

3. Use judgment:
   If the demographic questions are too invasive, just don't answer them. Ask yourself if disclosing the information is really worth gaining the free service. Remember the rule of thumb we discussed in the webforms lesson: never give any information that you wouldn't normally write down on the subway station wall.

4. "Share this great offer with your friends . . ."
   Freebie providers may ask for your friends' email addresses to share their great offer with them. They may even provide incentives for providing a certain number of email addresses. Be careful not to sign your friends up for some junk mail they may not want or need.

5. Don't give your info.
   If you can avoid giving your personal information or if giving your information is optional, don't give it.
   
   

Finally, here's the part of the lesson where I actually give hyperlinks to some free offers. I give some mini-reviews based on personal experience where applicable.

Service Freebies off of the Internet

These websites provide a service for free. You may need to become a member with a username and password.

Personalized Internet Start Page:

An Internet start page can provide a place for you to store your favorite website addresses, have information updated daily (like horoscope, TV listings, weather reports), and daily headlines from regional (New York Post, Boston Globe) or national (USA today, Associated Press) news publications. Have all of these things, plus up-to-the-minute TV listings, movie showtimes, stock market quotes, technology news, and more organized on one page.

My Yahoo: http://my.yahoo.com/
You can do all of the mentioned above, and then some.

My Excite: http://my.excite.com/

MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/

Other Service Freebies:

Before you buy anything . . . http://www.consumersearch.com/
This website compares the latest in electronics, automotive, clothing, and toys for you to read before heading out to the mall.

Epinions.com: http://www.epinions.com/
Another website that comparison shops for you.

Tangible Freebies off of the Internet

Freebies in Print:

Many magazines, newspapers and publishers offer much of their current publications for free on the internet. Instead of purchasing them or browsing at the bookstore, you can read them online at your computer workstation. However, in some cases, older archived material may not be free.

Boston Globe: http://www.bostonglobe.com/

Boston Herald: http://www.bostonherald.com/
These local Boston newspapers offer their current day's newspaper online for free.

Rolling Stone Magazine: http://www.rollingstone.com/
This music magazine offers articles from their current magazine as well as some archives from the past year. You can browse some online extras as well pictures, polls).

Time Magazine: http://www.time.com/
Read full text articles and features for current and search content of past issues (back to 1985!) of Time magazine.

Goodies:

I haven't actually tried all of these. If you do try them, let me know how they work out. But use caution! If they ask for a credit card number, it may not be as free as they advertise it to be.

Free Stuff: http://www.freestuffcenter.com/
Has listings of free offers from a number of magazine publishers, greeting cards, and catalogs. Be sure to read everything thoroughly before signing up.

Free Coupons: http://mycoupons.com/
Grocery and shopping coupons as well as links to manufacturers who offer online coupons in return for filling out surveys on their websites.

Custom Coupons: http://coolsavings.com/
This website points you to free Internet coupons which you can print out and use in stores; except this site tailors the list to items that you specify.

Electronic Freebies off the Internet

Email:

Web-based email is convenient because it can be accessed and sent from any internet-enabled computer worldwide. A downfall is that it may have moments of unavailability or unreliability because of Internet congestion and use.

Hotmail from Microsoft: http://www.hotmail.com/
One of the more popular email services, hotmail has great features and support. You may have trouble getting the email address you want because of its worldwide popularity.

Yahoo Mail: http://mail.yahoo.com/
Another free email service with good performance. Less popular, so you may have more freedom selecting an email address. Your Yahoo ID can allow you to take advantage of other free services like chat, Internet start pages, bookmark storage, etc.

Gmail: http://www.gmail.com
Gmail is a new kind of webmail boasting numerous features such as nearly unlimited storage space, chat, and a built in search engine to name a few.

Chat:

Chat permits you to type to others around the world in real-time, about specific topics in the chat rooms. You can chat with specific individuals (my brother in NY), or strangers with similar interests.

Yahoo Chat: http://chat.yahoo.com/
With the same yahoo ID you used to register for your Yahoo email, you can chat in real time using nothing more than an up-to-date web browser. No software needs to be downloaded.

AOL Instant Messenger: http://www.aim.com/
AOL Instant Messenger is a program you can download which will permit you to chat with other friends who also have AOL or MSN instant messenger or have America Online as their ISP (Internet Service Provider) while they are online. It alerts you when your friends are online.

MSN Instant Messenger: http://get.live.com/messenger/overview
MSN Insant Messanger shares many of the same features as AOL Instant Messanger and is in fact the world's most popular messanger network.

Create a website for free:

Anyone can create a website for free. The catch is that the company hosting your website usually includes banner ads for sponsors on whatever pages you create.

Tripod: http://www.tripod.lycos.com/
A straightforward service that's been a leader for years. Many tutorials, and options to upgrade your site to advertising-free.

Yahoo! Geocities: http://geocities.yahoo.com/home/
The free website hosting company that started it all. There's tons of tutorials to learn how to encode web pages from scratch.

Assignment: Find more freebies

1. Using an Internet search engine (see search engine lesson) or an Internet directory (see directory lesson), find more freebie offers on the Internet.

2. Out of your list of freebies, pick one and write about it on the Intro to the Internet guestbook. Be sure to include the full URL so your classmates can visit and take advantage of the freebie.

Site and course content by Kevin Berner, edited by Lori Wallace and Donna Wilbur