Firm Offers Trade: PCs for Privacy
A CALIFORNIA OUTFIT offering free PCs in return for consumers’ demographic information and their privacy was so swamped with requests on the first day that its voice mail system was brought down by consumers calling any extension at the company.
Free-PC Inc. (www.free-pc.com), Pasadena, CA, allows targeted advertising messages to be delivered directly on the desktop. The company will ship its first 10,000 Compaq Presario Internet PCs to qualifying customers in the second quarter. The offer includes free Internet access and e-mail.
When consumers apply for a Free-PC, they will be asked to fill out a questionnaire that provides the company with typical demographic data, such as age, income and family status, along with information about personal tastes and interests. This information is then used to determine which advertisements are displayed.
Ads will appear in a frame that surrounds the working area of the computer screen. Ads are drawn from a collection stored on the hard drive that ships with the PC, so they will be displayed whether or not the user is online. The PC’s ad database will be updated periodically when the user is online.
People could sign up beginning Feb. 9, and on that very day the company’s voice mail system was jammed, its Web site had 1.2 million visits and 200 people showed up in person.
The company said that no personal information will be revealed to advertisers, and that it won’t sell or give away consumer data to third parties.
Free-PC is the brainchild of Internet venture firm Idealab!, which also developed search engine GoTo.com and online toy retailer eToys.
