Rather Than Arresting WiFi Freeloaders, Why Not Offer Them Coffee?
from the is-that-so-difficult? dept
The question of WiFi freeloading comes up every few months or so, usually when some local reporter is convinced by some random security person to write a fear mongering report about how using open WiFi networks is evil and people should go to jail for it. Usually these are about someone using residential open WiFi, but a few months back there was the story of a guy arrested for using the open WiFi at a coffee shop. The coffee shop put the WiFi there for people to use, but because this guy used it in the parking lot and didn't buy anything, the owner of the shop had him arrested. Lots of business owners who offer free WiFi initially get upset at these so-called "freeloaders," though they seldom seem to realize that the freeloaders usually aren't costing them much, if anything. Most broadband connections are of the "all you can eat" variety, meaning that there is no additional cost for each user. While they may clog up the connection, that's also fairly rare.So, it's somewhat refreshing to see a column advocating the exact opposite, suggesting that businesses learn to embrace the WiFi "leeches." It suggests making it easier to connect, by removing logins or other annoying limiting gates, and then just being happy that someone associates your brand with something positive (while lowering the administrative headache as well). The authors note that there are even some Best Western Motels that will offer WiFi freeloaders free coffee -- recognizing that even if they're not staying there that time, in the future they'll remember the good experience and think about staying at those hotels. In other words, it's a relatively cheap way to generate some positive feelings from potential customers. Seems a lot more useful than trying to throw those same people in jail.
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Always looking for the Short Term Gains...
Smart companies like Best Western will see this wifi service as a loss leader, and come up with a creative way to convert them into a customer, rather than risk the enormous amount of damage bad press will cause by having someone put in jail for a service that should be free.
Too many companies are so short-sightedm but I digress.
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Re: Always looking for the Short Term Gains...
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Not arrested for strictly for WiFi
From what I remember, the freeloader's case is muddled by the fact that he had some legal issues in the first place, had been asked to leave by the police, but he came right back. I also believe he was considered to be trespassing in the parking lot versus doing all of this from public property (the street or sidewalk).
I used these Digg links because the original story is no longer available at the KATU site.
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You're kidding - right?
Hey, Mike, why don't we just let people have everything they want for free. That way no business anywhere would generate any bad press for themselves. Oh, wait, that's called socialism, has been tried, and doesn't work.
Love the sensationalism, though. I think this story is a prime example of the "two sides to every story" theory. Key facts, left unaccounted for, make for a bad journalist. With a little research(very little, it turns out in this case) you can find out what REALLY happened. But, why let trivial things like facts ruin a good concept.
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Re: You're kidding - right?
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Other crimes man was guilty of
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Re: You're kidding - right?
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Wal-Mart
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Forest? You mean all these trees?
Unless I'm mistaken, the point, and corresponding link, are in the second paragraph. (not to mention the title) and deals with companies allowing these so-called 'leeches' to use their WI-Fi without being a paying customer. Which sounds fine to me-- not that I use Wi-Fi anywhere but home and work, but I'm sure a few college kids unable to shell out the $60+/month for broadband internet or businessmen on lengthy road trips would love the idea.
On a side note-- IANAL, but I don't think you can get arrested for using Wi-Fi if it's unsecured (in this country) so of course they had him arrested for something else. I could be mistaken, though.
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Missing the point
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There's nothing illegal about it.
At the end of this mess, the courts set a precedent indicating 'receiving' signals was no crime. If the transmitter of the signal wanted it secured, it was [his] responsibility to do so. As we all know, Sat TV is now totally proprietized and secured.
Wi-Fi would fall under the same guidelines. You simply cannot steal an open, unsecured signal. It becomes public domain.
As for the guy sitting in the coffee shop parking lot, his arrest could only have been for trespassing....and perhaps for being a pedophile. Sicko bastard.
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Welll
I think the reason shop owners (especially small shop owners) are scared to use free wifi as a loss leader is they are afraid of what freeloaders would do with the bandwidth. In this day and age where liability for what is downloaded off the net is being shifted around I don't blame anyone for being scared to use it.
And besides I don't think the free wifi isn't gonna do much to boost sales in a coffee shop anyway. One freeloader tells her/his friends. And they tell their friends...etc. Soon you have a shop/parking half full of people that are only there for the free wifi and don't buy anything.
Now one thing a shop owner could try is (if they are tech/gamer savy enough) to have like weekly LAN parties. Your basic freeloader may not buy anything but if you're there for an all day or all night LAN party then chances are you will.
In coclusion while there are some good reasons to use free wifi to draw in a crowd there are still plenty of good reasons that shop owners hesitate to dive into the idea.
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i agree with free=business
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that's my rant on that, and i expect a full tearing of my "theory" in less than 20 minutes.
next, there's a line between giving "promotions" to attract customers and just giving stuff away. promotions are done to entice a response. wether it's listening to the radio, going shopping, or returning business to best western, you get some value now in return for loyality later. as opposed to just saying here's free inet, tshirts, food...and you having no connection between the items and who gave them out.
and this isn't about someone giving free interent to 100000 of freeloaders at one point. it's giving to 10 or so people trying to "steal" the free wi-fi.
personally, i think its great. first, i know many ppl that will try to freeload just because it's "edgy" like oohhh i can haxor my way into the starbucks wifi--(who cares? i don't, but i guess their friends do) if they find out it's free..it loses it's appeal. next if someone really wants broadband, but cna't pay and they find they can get free and unrestricted internet, it could spark a new customer, and maybe a chaing from that (person tells 3 friends...they bring 3 more each...kinda like a cheap pyrmaid scheeme.
anyway...i think i have enough for you guys to tell me how much of an idiot i am. bring it on
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Let's say I need directions to my hotel room. I see that Bill's Diner has a free WiFi sign up in their parking lot. Well after I'm done with working, I may well visit the establishment or another in the chain. I may not have time to stop and patronize the business right then and there, but service and quality of goods are key factors to me in choosing where to spend my time and money. Free WiFi amounts to excellent service from management.
So sure, maybe there are simply 'freeloaders' out there. If they are so pathetic that they have to sit in the parking lot and use WiFi, instead of just spending the 40 a month for broadband at home, there's a VERY high chance they will never patronize your business anyway.
Plus if the sicko pedo-freak was coming back to use the wireless all the time... The local police simply could have made some logs of the sites he was going to via his MAC address, watched him for a few days to build evidence and arrested him right in the parking lot. Better off to let the freaks do this - give them the rope for their own noose.
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Free is free
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So, why not?
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Free is fine, but can't get rid of the login
Think about bathrooms in a restaurant. A lot of them have signs that read 'Bathroom for Paying Customers Only'. Why do they do this? essentially to discourage people from using it as their own private bathroom. However, that doesn't mean that everyone who has a kid with a potty emergency will get turned away, nor will they turn away a regular customer, even if they just stopped in to use the head. The point is, it gives undesirables the notion that the bathroom is being watched.
Same thing applies for wi-fi. If I leave an open network with no login, it becomes tantamount to a public bathroom. But once I put in the login screen - even if there is no verification on the part of the end-user's credentials, I have essentially said that I care about this network, and know that I am watching you. This alone will discourage a fair amount of freeloaders, but not deter bob from getting his directions.
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Comunity
what real facts do you have to support your comments....
I put in a free wifi 2 years ago at my Coffee shop to go with pay terminals as the pay terminal has gone down my business has almost doubled and yes we have a lot of people sitting around all day on there laptops but you know what I sell coffee all day and muffins and sandwiches etc... you know what else my place looks "happening" so it draws more people into my place.
in addition I put no log in this creates a community atmosphere. I hate those bathroom signs the guy above talks about what if I am a normal customer or even a once a month customer but today I just need to use the bathroom or the wifi? if I am part of the community its no problem if I am not I want to be welcome anyway.
and as far as your negative goes as with all things you gotta take the bad with the good.
The positive far out ways the negative. The atmosphere of sharing and community is awesome and my business is doing great
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can you track internet usage w/o having a username check? liability...what if Joe Schmoe comes in 3 times a week and choses different log in names each time....what if "child porno guy" comes in an uses different names each time?
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oh crap!
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I agree with most of it...
Why bother, you may ask. In my town there is a local forum that has a list of all the businesses that have open WiFi (some intentional, some just bad router configuration/security). There is a whole group of people who spend lots of time going to these various sites as a replacement for buying their own internet connection. Very lame, but they get some type of charge out of it. One scenario that did come up was a person living next to a coffee shop with free wifi. You can imagine he never got an internet connection of his own (he was later found out because someone looked at the DHCP logs in the router and summized that someone near the store was using the connection way too often). In short, having an easy to acquire, no strings attached, login makes good business sense when combined with free WiFi. You still get increased traffic, lot's of people think you're cool, and you minimize the potential for some parasite to abuse your genorosity.
The password for today is ...
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Right
The only issue which arises, in my mind, is the potential effect of non-authentication on our Safe Harbor status under DMCA; however, by maintaining open access, I believe we avoid any liability. I have not, however, had time to really ivestigate this issue.
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How I would run a coffee house wifi hotspot...
To accomplish this you could rig up an access point with a splash page requiring a code to continue. When a customer makes a purchase such as coffee a unique access code would be printed on the receipt. They can then use this code to get an hour of free wifi. Once that hour is up they will be presented with a page where they can either enter another code or purchase more wifi. This would of course all be computer controlled.
Someone could potentially make a lot of money selling an easy to install system like this to coffeeshops and other restaurants, newsstands, kiosks, etc.
BMR
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Unfettered hotspots
I've eaten horrible salads, drank good coffee, changed hotel plans, and had some rather nice sandwiches because of this.
The point is that rarely I kinda need internet access when I'm not at home/work and I'm not going to pay a monthly fee for soemthing I use so rarely. Furthermore I find the overpriced services many places offer to be really annoying (Starbucks!!!).
As far as "stealing" access; it's a radio signal. This is already governed by existing laws. You can listen to ANY radio signal that uses public channels and is not encrypted legally. Treating wireless networking differently is an affront to our existing legal framework. But then again, the legislature in the US thinks that our Constitution was printed on toilet paper anyway.
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Unfettered hotspots
I've eaten horrible salads, drank good coffee, changed hotel plans, and had some rather nice sandwiches because of this.
The point is that rarely I kinda need internet access when I'm not at home/work and I'm not going to pay a monthly fee for soemthing I use so rarely. Furthermore I find the overpriced services many places offer to be really annoying (Starbucks!!!).
As far as "stealing" access; it's a radio signal. This is already governed by existing laws. You can listen to ANY radio signal that uses public channels and is not encrypted legally. Treating wireless networking differently is an affront to our existing legal framework. But then again, the legislature in the US thinks that our Constitution was printed on toilet paper anyway.
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Masnick has his facts wrong on this one...
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