Get Your Chance to Make Your Friends Spam Targets

[Skebo]

Today I received an email from the LA Kings as part of their 'Royal Report' which I registered for about a year ago. Usually they contain breaking news about transactions and injuries, so they are a "good thing". However, today it was for "Get Your Chance to Win a Los Angeles Kings Road Trip", which I had to click on, right away. Linky

Imagine my HORROR when the entry form requires that I have to, not only offer my name, email address, and telephone number. But also offer up the same informatin for FIVE of my friends. You know what happens next, right. Well, if you don't ready the rules.
And note, toward the bottom:

Completed form is the property of Sponsor and may be used for secondary promotional purposes.

Which is equivalent to "We are gonna SPAM the hell outta you and your friends". I really can't imagine that anybody wants to open themselves up to this, but go ahead if you want. This really just makes me sick.

[Osprey]

It's this way with practically every promotion, as you know. The only reason that something is free is that they're recouping the cost through advertisement... i.e. one person gets something that they want and tens of thousands get something that they don't want. If it's offering a chance of something for "nothing," choose the nothing that you already have... as in nothing in your e-mail or mail boxes. Don't sign up for contests, don't fall for promotions, don't get suckered into "win a free <something>" web banners and don't subscribe to lists without a guarantee that your information won't be shared.

Of course, most people already know this, but there are enough people who will click on anything and give away contact information for anything, judging by the popularity of these schemes. The only difference between them and scams is that, in scams, no one gets anything; in contests/promotions, just one or two people get something. IMO, that's just a very, very small difference. Ok, rant over

[kingsfan]

This is why I have a yahoo account set up solely for signing up for this stuff. Use it and let the spam pile up there where you don't to look at it. Just sign in once in a while to keep it active.

[ILuvLA]

I always delete those suckers. It seems like almost all of the Kings' promos for winning stuff have that spam crap requirement.

[multiball]

"Horror" is a dramatic word, don'tcha think?

This is one of those contests that the Kings' marketing department dreamed up in an attempt to get data of potential hockey fans from current hockey fans - not such a bad idea if you're a marketing exec. I mean, who would know better than a hockey nut who would be likely to buy hockey tickets?

There's no "Mountain Dew" or "Slim Jim" sponsor that's gonna blast your email box ad nauseum with html spam. "Sponsor" refers to the Kings here, if I'm reading the form correctly.

It's not the most creative contest ever, but if it's "making you sick" then perhaps you washed down tonight's dinner with a nice bottle of ipecac.

So many people have blasted the marketing department that I at least wanna give them credit for a technically well-presented and decently timed contest. The page looked good and worked well. And they are in the 21 century with a data-centric online promotion...