Viral Marketing Sneaks Through EULA
from the ugh dept
The latest in absolutely sleazy marketing tricks is scaring people into thinking they've received a virus. Some idiot marketer at an online greeting card company, realizing that no one reads through the various end-user license agreements they're always required to click through, hid a statement in one saying that by agreeing to the EULA, they agree to automatically spam everyone in their addressbook with a similar message. This is, of course, a fairly disgusting abuse of the EULA, but does show how ridiculous those things are. What's scary is that I'm afraid others will now see this as a "legitimate" marketing technique. Update: MSNBC has more on this e-greeting EULA virus that includes the quote from the idiot person who created it defending the company: "I can name you about a hundred different companies, publicly traded companies, that are doing far worse than I am. You’ve never heard of KaZaa, you’ve never heard of Morpheus, nobody’s ever heard of any of these file-sharing companies that put all kinds of software on your computer? ... Well, now you’ve heard of us." Ah, yes, the old "others are doing it, so I can too" defense. Unfortunately, this one is worse because it forces you to email everyone in your address book, unlike the spyware programs which are evil in their own ways.
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Those other companies get slammed as well
True, but they get hammered by public opinion also. It's still a stupid thing to do.
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