Eh... if you were already a member there and logged in, the link would be accurate. It just saw that you didn't have the cookie and popped you to the signup page. It probably should have said (membership required) or maybe something like gamespot does, with a closed red padlock indicating members-only content.

Doesn't make it any less annoying though.

jc

-Posted by JC on February 27, 2003 09:53 AM

Yeah, that's the point. On other pages, they clearly show what's a premium item, so not doing that consistently is annoying, and creates a situation where a link lies to the user.

However, it's not like they are writing a false url to the status bar, so it's more of an oversight (maybe?). Doesn't make it any less annoying though.

-Posted by Dan on February 27, 2003 10:09 AM

Unfortunately, this seems to becoming more and more common. It is a real shame, as I will not do business with a site that requires Personal information.

(BTW, the custom Icons Rock!)

-Posted by Steve on February 27, 2003 03:36 PM

"I will not do business with a site that requires Personal information"

Hmm. Well, if you're doing business, you're generally either paying for something, or being paid, and in either case, you have to give at least SOME real information, obviously.

If it's a content-only site, and just requires a registration, there's nothing there ensuring you don't fake it. I've long since lost track of the number of websites where I've registered as Zippi The Clown, email ZippiTheClown@magnificentclowns.de. (a random thing I picked years ago while exceedingly tired)

If they need an email address just to confirm/activate, I use a throwaway yahoo one. If it's going to involve continued communication but I'm worried about spam, I make an account on one of my domains tagging where it's from (eg JCs_Ebay@wherever.com) and blackhole the account if it starts getting heavy spam.

I don't see what the fuss is, beyond it being misleading which is obviously annoying.

Like the icon, Steve. One of my favorite characters.

-Posted by JC on February 27, 2003 05:48 PM

Icon test. Meatwad rules.

-Posted by Eric on February 27, 2003 07:24 PM

"annoying your users wasn't the best way to get more subscriptions"

My UX team has started calling Marketing, "the Anti-Usability Group" because they refuse to believe this.

Of course we have already slipped and used that title while in a meeting with them.

-Posted by Josh on February 28, 2003 01:53 AM

Hahahaha, that's perfect.

I have a friend who works at Verisign who says pretty much the same thing. He works on a commercial web app, and marketing is always messing things up, and injecting their ideas into the interaction architecture of the site and generally make things more difficult for the user.

So far, I've had zero involvement with marketing at my job so far...

-Posted by Dan on February 28, 2003 08:55 AM

An afterthought after Chad pointed to this entry again: Phoenix (and I'm guessing Mozilla too, but I'm not sure) enables you to disallow JavaScript to change status bar text. I rarely find status bar text useful, so I have it enabled.

-Posted by Joshua Kaufman on March 10, 2003 10:16 AM