The Tease of Things I Don't Need

If "Free" is trademarked, what then does it mean?

The comics news site Newsarama sent me an email this afternoon for a site offering free downloads of books and magazines on a variety of subects, including indy comics and graphic novels, called WOWIO.

So far it sounded good, but when I looked into the account process their "simple" process begins with "prove your identity, tell us a little bit about yourself,..."

The methods they have to this oh-so-essential task? Well, if one has an email address from a domain ending in .edu, .gov or .mil, that's good enough. If not, then it's either a credit card or a scan of any government- or college-issued identification. Oh, but don't worry, they only use it to verify that you are who you say you are, then they destroy this information.

Oh, have I just become monstrously cynical, or are you with me in looking at a "free", advertiser-driven site, this identity verification process and their pledge to destroy the information and crying Bullshit! ?

It's not that I believe that anything especially nefarious is going to be done with the information, but I'm having a difficult time justifying their need to "verify" these things in a context where they're claiming they won't keep it. Technically, all they're pledging to do is delete the credit card number and the scans, but since it's an ad-driven site I find it difficult to believe they're going to just delete the information rather than, oh, include it in their database.

Yes, I understand that the identity concerns center on misuse of the downloads -- reposting them on the web, reproducing them or just passing them along -- because that destroys their advertiser-driven business model. Presumably each e-book download, along with customized ads (though at this stage they probably have few enough advertisers that everyone is likely getting the same mix) will contain some indentifying code so if an item shows up somewhere they can trace it back to an account.

If I currently had an .edu account I'd be more likely to give it a try, but I don't and none of the other options strike me as comfortable. I'm not sending them credit card info nor a scan of my driver's license.

If any of you try it (and this will mean more if it's coming from someone I know, not someone appearing out of the blue to forever after be known as a wowio shill) I'd be interested in reading about the experience.

Tags: WOWIO