Viral Marketing Sneaks Through EULA
from the ugh dept
The latest in absolutely sleazy marketing tricks is scaring people into thinking they’ve received a virus. Some idiot marketer at an online greeting card company, realizing that no one reads through the various end-user license agreements they’re always required to click through, hid a statement in one saying that by agreeing to the EULA, they agree to automatically spam everyone in their addressbook with a similar message. This is, of course, a fairly disgusting abuse of the EULA, but does show how ridiculous those things are. What’s scary is that I’m afraid others will now see this as a “legitimate” marketing technique. Update: MSNBC has more on this e-greeting EULA virus that includes the quote from the idiot person who created it defending the company: “I can name you about a hundred different companies, publicly traded companies, that are doing far worse than I am. You?ve never heard of KaZaa, you?ve never heard of Morpheus, nobody?s ever heard of any of these file-sharing companies that put all kinds of software on your computer? … Well, now you?ve heard of us.” Ah, yes, the old “others are doing it, so I can too” defense. Unfortunately, this one is worse because it forces you to email everyone in your address book, unlike the spyware programs which are evil in their own ways.
Comments on “Viral Marketing Sneaks Through EULA”
Those other companies get slammed as well
It’s like defending against monopolistic behavior by saying that Microsoft and many others do it.
True, but they get hammered by public opinion also. It’s still a stupid thing to do.