user: cypherpunks, password: cypherpunks

[Damaged Justice <frogfarm@yakko.cs.wmich.edu>]

                     Content Sites Vexed By Password Abuse
                                       
  The high cost of subscribers sharing log-ons
  
     By Whit Andrews 
     Playboy magazine even has a term for it: "frat-house syndrome." Just
     as readers might pass around a magazine or a copy of a newsletter
     among themselves-- why buy multiple copies when you can see it
     after the guy down the hall is finished?-- Internet users often
     freely share access to their electronic subscriptions.
     The difference is that the number of people who can use a magazine
     or newsletter simultaneously is finite--limited to, say, a
     workgroup or the number of people who can comfortably fit onto a
     couch.
     On the Web, that expands to the number of people worldwide who can
     hunker in front of their monitors, printers, and personal digital
     assistants.
     "We did have one situation where a person posted a link to a story,
     and with it a user ID and password, on the Web, so people could get
     into it," said Tom Baker, business director of The Wall Street
     Journal Interactive edition. "He just thought it was an interesting
     story." Baker said that user seemed somewhat naive about the
     profound flouting of copyright law in which he was engaging, and
     several content providers have reported similar anecdotes involving
     clueless users.
     "I even have people we do business with say, 'Oh yeah, I got a
     password for our office,'" said Kenneth Dotson, vice president of
     marketing at SportsLine USA Inc., a Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based
     sports site with members-only content areas. "I've had that happen
     two or three times now." The problem of subscribers treating their
     privileges as a commodity that they can give away is particularly
     vexing to Web content sites, which have in most cases crossed a
     difficult hurdle in graduating to a model supported at least to
     some extent by subscription fees.
     Losing those usually low fees to user abuse is thus doubly
     frustrating.
     "We're here trying to make money," said Jay Froscheiser, corporate
     Webmaster at Data Transmission Network Corp., an Omaha, Neb.,
     online service creating new products on the Web with prices ranging
     from $20 to $50 monthly for access. "Serving 10 people on an
     account, we can't make money." DTN's solution is to use cookies,
     the tidbits of information that sites can store in browser files to
     track users' preferences and identities. If subscribers want to
     change browsers or access information from a different computer,
     they have to call DTN and set up the switch.
     Froscheiser said some subscribers complain that the system is too
     Draconian. For example, while many of the farmers who use
     agricultural information services have only one computer to work
     with, others whose work situations make them more itinerant are
     frustrated by their inability to log on from home, work, and
     elsewhere.
     But without exact statistics, it's DTN that is inconvenienced,
     because its deals with content providers are generally based on the
     number of subscribers who access the providers' services through
     DTN, Froscheiser said. "We have to have 100 percent accountability
     for how many people per service there are." Other content
     providers, whose prices are generally lower and are often defrayed
     by advertising to generate revenues, have adopted innovative ways
     to lure subscription cheats into ponying up the price to join.
     SportsLine, for instance, automatically enters members in all
     giveaways and promotions, whereas casual users have to key in their
     information manually. Subscribers can personalize their pages to
     allow them to follow special sports and teams.
     Dotson said such gentle measures are intended to make it more
     attractive to be a member than to use someone else's account, and
     are the only step likely for the company, at least into the near
     future.
     "The environment of the Web doesn't really allow you to police it,"
     he said, and after all, the company has enough of a revenue stream
     from ads to make extra users less of a burden. "We say, 'Okay, not
     much we can do about it, we'll just enjoy the extra page views.' "
     sitewide licenses Other companies whose information is more likely
     to be passed among office workers who share business interests
     rather than sports conversations are aggressively pursuing sitewide
     licenses and lower prices.
     The Wall Street Journal Interactive offers deals to offices that
     allow users to sign up, not with a credit-card number, but with a
     company ID number. Lexis-Nexis does not allow individual licenses,
     but prices its Web services based on how many people there are in
     the office instead.
     All of the content providers agreed that they would prefer other
     methods of controlling distribution, but that barring technological
     advances of significant proportion, they're stuck with what they've
     got.
     "Our strategy is not to implement a solution that's worse than the
     problem," said Wall Street Journal Interactive's Baker of encrypted
     document schemes and micropayment models. "If there were a way to
     protect our information that didn't put an onerous restriction on
     our subscribers reading it, we'd do it." Eileen Kent, vice
     president, new media division of Playboy Enterprises Inc. in
     Chicago, echoed the sentiment. Until technology improves, she said,
     content providers need to assume that there will be some improper
     use of memberships.
     "I think the technology will find solutions," she said. "But until
     then, it's just a cost of doing business."
       ______________________________________________________________
     
     Reprinted from Web Week, Volume 3, Issue 4, February 17, 1997 �
     Mecklermedia Corp. All rights reserved. Keywords: content
     electronic_commerce Date: 19970217 
     
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