Pay $2 Or We Give Your Info To Marketers

from the seems-a-bit-customer-unfriendly dept

You know things are getting bad when companies want to charge you to opt-out of getting spammed by them and their partners. However, that appears to be what's happening with at least one EA game on the Sony PSP. Submitted by Jim is this story at Kotaku, about an EA game called Fight Night Round 3. If you decide to play online, it asks you to go through a registration process, and after that tells you that if you don't want the company to send your info to ESPN and other marketers, you need to pay $2. The wording on this is a bit odd, and an updated post has a few more details. The positioning is a bit different (not surprisingly). EA basically is saying that the online version costs $2, but that ESPN will pay that subscription fee for you... if you turn over your info to them. That's perhaps not as bad as the original post made it out to be, but they should at least make it clear before you do anything that these options will be presented to you and that the online version is not free.
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  1. identicon
    Seth, 20 Feb 2006 @ 5:08am

    What a spin!

    They basically just spun the hell out of that. Saying that it's not free but they will pay the fee is the exact same thing as making you pay to not get spam. This is why everyone needs a phony email address for this type of thing.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Fubacca, 20 Feb 2006 @ 9:51am

    Re: What a spin!

    Well that's exactly what dodgeit.com is for. type in any email address you want. (anything)@dodgeit.com.

    Visit their site and enter the name you used. Free service and they allow you to even check the mailbox.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Griffon, 20 Feb 2006 @ 2:34pm

    What does the box say?

    Sounds pretty ridiculous. I was going to buy FN3 but I'm not now if doesn't support Live play for free (or without me giving them my personal info). Does the box say online play may cost extra? If not then it's clear case of false advertising.

    link to this | view in thread ]


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