COMPANY OFFERING FREE COMPUTERS - FOR A PRICE.Byline: Michael White There are multiple public figures named Michael White or Mike White, including:
Associated Press (AP) Cooperative news agency, the oldest and largest in the U.S. and long the largest in the world. An electronic commerce company offered Monday to give free computers to as many as 1 million people in exchange for details about their personal lives, including where they go and what they buy on the Internet. Users must be willing to look at an incessant barrage of advertisements that will appear on-screen on·screen or on-screen adj. & adv. 1. As shown on a movie, television, or display screen. 2. Within public view; in public. whenever the computer is turned on. On Monday, plenty of people seemed willing to make the trade with Free-PC.com. Access to the company's Web site was clogged. Phone lines were busy, and some people even showed up at the company's offices looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. free computers. The concept is similar to one used by companies that give away cellular phones or cable TV boxes to get customers to buy the service. Initially, Free-PC.com will give 10,000 new computers to applicants willing to provide information such as their age, income and hobbies. The first computers won't be given out until sometime after March. If there's enough demand, the number of free computers could rise to 1 million. Formed in late 1998, Free-PC.com was spawned by idealab!, a company that specializes in launching new high-tech ventures. Other idealab! companies include eToys, an online toy store A toy store, or toy shop, is a retail business specializing in the services of selling toys. No longer held to the limitations of the brick and mortar outlet, the toy store has successfully created a presence within the e-commerce industry. , and Westlake Village-based NetZero, an ad-supported Internet provider Internet provider - Internet Service Provider . Success of Free-PC.com hinges on the notion the company will earn enough money from ads to underwrite the $500 cost of each computer. Participants will get a Compaq Presario Internet PC equipped with a 333 MHz (MegaHertZ) One million cycles per second. It is used to measure the transmission speed of electronic devices, including channels, buses and the computer's internal clock. A one-megahertz clock (1 MHz) means some number of bits (16, 32, 64, etc. processor, 32 megabytes of RAM, a four-gigabyte hard drive and 33.6k modem. The deal also includes free Internet access. Consumer advocates warned applicants they should consider whether a new computer is worth the price of their personal information. ``What guarantee is there that the data that's gathered, which could be significant, will not be used sometime in the future for law enforcement investigations, insurance purposes, employment, decision making?'' asked Beth Givens, director of the Privacy Rights Clearing House. |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion