I decided to sign up for the WM3 Announcement Mailing List yesterday afternoon while I was on their site looking for something else. I’d heard of Topica before and may have even been on a list hosted by them in the past. I don’t think I had an opinion on them one way or another, but I do now.
As part of registering for the list, I got one of those affilated offer pages with about 50 checkboxes and offers that you see with some free services (and even pay ones, I’m looking at you, GoDaddy). As is my habit with these sorts of things, I scrolled down to the bottom of the page to find the “No Thanks” button, scanning as I went to make sure that there weren’t any boxes checked by default. I clicked the button and expected to get some sort of completion message. Instead, I got another offer along with a Submit and a Skip button. Skip. And another. Skip. And another. Skip. And another. There must have been 8-10 individual offers in all requiring me to dismiss each one before I was declared complete. Sure, I could’ve just stopped, but it’s human nature to want to be sure that you’re not getting signed up for something you don’t want and they’re playing off of that, forcing you to click over and over again instead of presenting it all on one page (or not at all, but I understand I have to do something for my free service).
Now that I’ve googled Topica, it’s clear they’ve turned into some sort of Internet Marketing Evil Empire. Surely there’s got to be a better alternative for the WM3 people and those who don’t want to be affiliated with these sorts of tactics?