BugMeNot.com

When publishers wants more data about online consumers but many consumers don’t want to disclose data, a technological arms race results. Now that many online publications are requiring that consumers register before reading, it shouldn’t be surprising that some online consumers are developing applications to avoid that. The latest is BugMeNot.com.

This Australian Web site lets consumers anonymously share active usernames and passwords for more than 130 forced-registration sites. “BugMeNot.com was created as a mechanism to quickly bypass the login of websites that require compulsory registration and/or the collection of personal/demographic information (such as the New York Times),” its FAQ declares.

“Why not just register? It’s a breach of privacy. Sites don’t have a great track record with the whole spam thing. It’s contrary to the fundamental spirit of the net. Just ask Google. It’s pointless due to the significant percentage of users who enter fake demographic details anyway. It’s a waste of time. It’s annoying as hell. Imagine if every site required registration to access content.”

NYTimes.com and LATimes.com are currently the two most popular sites at BugMeNot.com, whose servers are based in the US.

What We Do

Since 1996, the media business consulting firm of Digital Deliverance has provided publishers and broadcasters on four continents with strategic reviews and advice about how to profitably adapt to the epochal changes that computer-mediated technologies have wrought on the media environment and their industries.

Over the years, the firm’s clients have include The New York Times, News Corporation, The Irish Times of Dublin, Dagbladet of Oslo, The Mail & Guardian of Johannesburg, Advance Publications, Critical Mention, MediaNews Group, New Century Network, the Media Development Investment Fund, the National Cancer Institutes, and scores of other media firms that need to adapt to computer-mediated technologies and the rise of Individuated Media.

The managing partner of Digital Deliverance is Vin Crosbie, Adjunct Professor of postgraduate New Media Management at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communication, in upstate New York. From 2007 through 2020, he wrote and was the sole instructor of the school’s New Media Business course, a course required for students in the New Media Management master’s degree curriculuum, an elective course for Ph.D. students, and a permission-only course for selected undergraduates and graduate students.

Digital Deliverance is incorporated as a limited liability company in the U.S. state of Connecticut, where it is based in the city of Norwich, Connecticut.