The Times don't bother following this link since I'm only listing it in order to give it my vote for the "Dodgy site of the week" award.

I can just about accept the slightly underhand approach of news sites which let you search their archives but then make you subscribe to their service before seeing any actual articles. After all, they have to get business somehow. However, the Times has gone too far.

At present news sites are a mixture. Some - mostly the ones who have been doing this a long time like the New York Times - just want your data before letting you in. Others want your money. However, most of them are up front about which path you will be taking from the outset.

I just ran a search on the Times website. I got one indifferent hit for my search term (which in itself is disappointing since I was looking for a specific article on that subject which I know they published well before their last indexing run).

The link led me to a page that explained I would have to sign up to read the article. Fair enough - so I filled in 3 screens of data and hit submit. That's when I got the 'money screen' which I promptly cancelled. The information I wanted was not worth it.

Nevertheless I just got an e-mail from The Times telling me that I'd successfully signed up. However it added - "You will be able to use your user name and password for all parts of the site that are behind registration, with the exception of The Times and The Sunday Times online archive and The Times Legal Archive. " - in other words, everything immediately visible on their site.

So basically The Times have just conned me out of my personal details and given me access to exactly nothing.

Cute.

posted at 6:36 PM
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