Pasadena, California-based Free PC, Inc. wants to give you a free computer and free Internet connectivity. Like most offers, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
In this case, a “free” PC actually comes at a stiff price—if you value your personal privacy or control of your attention.
Picture yourself in front of your new 333 MHz Compaq Presario with 32 Mb of RAM and a 4 Gb hard disk (plus CD-ROM), connecting to the Net with integrated 33.6 Kbps modem, all displayed on a 15-inch monitor.
All for free.
Well, not really.
Only half of that hard disk is available for your programs and documents. More than a third of that 15-inch monitor is used to display advertising (whether you are online or not). And only part of that 33.6 Kbps bandwidth is available for your use (the rest of it consumed by delivering even more advertisements).
Free PC follows the mainstream thinking that people don’t dislike advertising, they just don’t like advertising for products they’re not interested in. Most of those observations are made by marketers and advertising account executives to justify their existence. There are many people who despise all advertising and many more who resent the continuing encroachment of ads into all realms of personal and public life. One of the main reasons I use Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, for example, is that it allows me to turn off all video, sound, and animated graphics. It’s difficult to read a Web page with all sorts of flashing gee-gaws and racket going on in the foreground.
But that’s just the tip of this problematic iceberg.
In order to qualify for the free computer, prospects have to fill out a detailed questionnaire with lots of interesting questions:
- Name, address and telephone numbers (including work numbers)
- Email address
- Birth date
- Sex
- Marital status
- Sex and birth date of everyone else who lives with you
- Total annual household income
- How you’ll use the computer and how many hours per week it’ll be used
- How many other computers you already have and what types they are
- Whether or not you have a printer and whether or not it’s color
- Your personal interests
- Your cars
- What other consumer electronics items you own
- Which newspapers and magazines you read
That’s a pretty hefty price to pay for the use of a computer for two years. That’s right, it’s not your computer. “Free-PCs are made available free of charge for two years to qualified applicants.”
The Free PC concept is actually pretty interesting. Imagine the possibilities if someone does it right. Based on the information harvested from the qualification questionnaire, Free PC, Inc. is interested only in the higher end of the consumer spectrum.
What if, instead of aiming for a market that doesn’t really need a free computer, Free PC (or another organization or even government agency) used the basic concept to reach at-risk households. Of course, the ads would have to go, replaced with useful information.
Imagine this scenario:
A middle-aged worker is downsized when the corporation she works for decides to move its facilities to another country. Chances are she provides at least half of the income for a family that probably doesn’t own many of the most recently introduced consumer electronics toys. Her family is now potentially at-risk.
GlobalMegaCorp decides it’s a good idea to provide retraining services in its local communities. Being a responsible corporate citizen, it recognizes that one of the last things displaced workers need is to be bombarded with yet more advertising. As a part of the services it offers it places a “Free PC” in the home of the displaced worker. The technology is the same: periodically, the computer dials into a Net account and downloads updated job listings, training schedules, community news, benefits information, service openings, and the like. The displaced worker can explore her options at her own pace and in a familiar environment.
Maybe she discovers information that can help her be a better employee for GlobalMegaCorp. Maybe she finds information that can help her flex her skills to become an independent contractor for GlobalMegaCorp. Maybe she even discovers that she has all she needs to actually produce more than she consumes.
Because it’s not a zero-sum proposition, and because it would benefit individuals at least as much as corporate interests, it will likely never even be attempted. And that’s too bad.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, Zero-Knowledge Systems of Montreal plans to provide an alternative for those of us who are alarmed about the level of banner ad targeting and consumer profiling that’s currently taking place in our public cyberspaces. The startup’s first product, Freedom, uses layered public-key encryption and re-routing to allow anonymous and virtually untraceable Net use including email and Web browsing.
Freedom users can create multiple online identities for different purposes. You can create one persona for mailing lists and a different one for ecommerce. Through the use of pseudonyms, each identity has its own email address, encryption key, and physical location.
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