September 01, 2004 | FreeIPods.com both Pyramid Scheme and a Privacy Scam

So I was interested in seeing how freeipods.com worked, so I visited their site. To get any information on how the program works, you have to provide them with an email address.

They make it clear they will market to you on behalf of other companies.

Within two hours, I got two spams originating from this shady marketing company. Now it is not such a big deal, since I wasn't dumb enough to use my main account and I also use a fantastic open-source Bayesian spam filter so I could kill the emails in no time.

But check out this policy:

Additionally, when you open, preview or click on the advertising portion of our e-mails and/or those of our marketing partners and/or affiliates of CashinEmail.com, you have agreed to the terms set forth in our Privacy Policy and agree that as a function of opening, previewing or clicking on the advertising portion of our e-mails, that you will receive new or additional marketing communications from us, our marketing partners and/or affiliates of CashinEmail.com.

If I read the email or preview it, I've agreed to get more spam?

So of course, I tried opting out. Seems that will take them some time however, according to the opt-out message.

Funny how technology works. Seems this company can ADD email addresses to a database and then use that address in a mass mailing within two hours.

But taking an email address out? Whew, that's a hard one. They say it will take them a week. That's 84 times longer than it took to add an address...

But let's not forget the real problem, which is that the whole operation is a pyramid scheme (albeit a legal one)

All it takes is calculator.

Updating the classic pyramid scheme, freeipods will reward those who get in early. But the twist is in store for those who get in later. In a traditional scheme, late arrivals lose lots of money.

In freeipods scheme, those people don't lose, they actually get something: unending emails touting holiday vacations and AOL sign-up disks mailed to their house every week for life.

Imagine that early on, 10,000 people joined and signed up (as one must at freeipods) for an offer from Ebay or AOL or BMG .

They collectively need to get 50,000 people to do the same to get their ipods.

Those 50,000 need to get 250,000 people to sign up.

Now if the thrid level people want to get Ipods, they need to find 1.25 million new people. And those people need to find 6.25 million people.

And the 6.25 million people need to find 37.5 million, who need to find 187.5 million new suckers.

And those suckers need to find over 937.5 million people with bad math skills.

And those people need to find 4.687 billion people who really have no clue to sign up.

At this point, the pyramid would have to stop without some new breakthrough on the part of SETI.

Sum total: 1.17 billion people with new ipods. 4.69 billion without. (And the proportions are worse the earlier it stops.)

Granted that's a lot of new iPods, but that's also a lot MORE people who thought they were gonna get the coolest new toy on the planet but will not.

But, I'm sure those losers will love all the "permission-based" marketing they will get as a consolation prize.

Posted by Ryan Singel at September 1, 2004 03:47 PM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.secondaryscreening.net/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/6

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference FreeIPods.com both Pyramid Scheme and a Privacy Scam:

» Lovely Day from Secondary Screening
Today, March 23, New York's Attorney General Eliot Spitzer filed suit against Gratis Internet , the 'brains' behind the Freepay Freeipods.com pyramid marketing schemes, alleging the company massively violated its privacy policy by selling its customer ... [Read More]

Tracked on March 24, 2006 10:28 AM

Post a comment

Posted by: GDorn at February 9, 2005 02:58 PM