Free registration and BugMeNot: OK or suspect?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Various sites ask for “free registration” in order to access their pages. Sometimes this is a hassle. Sometimes you think you’re going to get (more) spam. Mostly you wonder what the point is, since you can fill in any old garbage and be registered at some throwaway email address.

After not getting access to a page at the Guardian, I spent time filling in “my” details and completed the registration, but didn’t confirm within the requisite (brief) time. Rather than go through the whole process again, I brought up BugMeNot.com, which I’d seen elsewhere (notably at obscurestore).

BugMeNot provides logins for sites requiring free registration. You can view their FAQ here. I’m leaning towards the view that this is ok - what do you reckon? IMHO, pertinent facts include:

  1. When signing up to free registration, most people post nonsense as their details.
  2. There are legitimate privacy and spam considerations involved with free registration.
  3. BugMeNot does not - or at least claims not to - give registrations to pay sites.
  4. Sites are excluded (again this is BugMeNot’s claim) on request.
2

I use BugMeNot. Most sites that it gives accounts and passwords for are newspapers etc, and these sites are just collecting names and email addresses because they can. If I wasn’t using BugMeNot the website would either be getting a fake email address, or my spam-dump one. And I always lie on all the none-of-your-damn-business marketing questions they ask. So either way the whole exercise is a waste of everyone’s time.

Membership of pay-sites, or places you actually make a contribution to, are a whole other matter.

3

I always assumed they collected the info because it helped them sell their ads. I usually don’t mind giving them some info, it seems fair to me.

But I do give them an email address that I only use for just such a purpose, as a spam-hole.