See
http://www.wired.com/news/news/business/story/17854.html
An excerpt:
A Free PC? Gimme!
by Craig Bicknell
3:00 a.m. 11.Feb.99.PST
Would you hand over personal information -- your income, interests, and
Net-surfing and spending habits -- in exchange for, say, a free computer?
Heck, yes! That's the answer more than half a million people have given
Free-PC.com since the new company posed the question Monday.
"It's been overwhelming," said spokesman Steve Chadima, "We knew it would
be popular, but we didn't know how popular it would be."
In case you missed it the first time, here's the deal: You go to Free-PC's
Web site, and fill out a questionnaire that asks your age, salary,
interests, what electronic gadgets you own, the age and gender of your
family members, and more. In return, Free-PC gives you a brand spanking
new Compaq Presario computer with free Internet access and email.
The catch? Advertisers inundate your new computer with pitches tailored to
your very specific, self-defined desires. What's more, they watch where
you go online, and what you buy.
Free-PC figures it'll make a lot more in targeted ad fees than it spends
on the giveaway computers. Moreover, it hopes that its new model will
ultimately make PCs available to everyone, regardless of income.
"This makes ubiquitous computing a real possibility," said Chadima.
But what about that personal data?
While the company insists that it will never sell or expose the
information it gathers, privacy advocates point out potential problems.
For instance, while Free-PC might not sell data, it could be bought by a
company that will.
"In the event of a sale, all that data is inherited by the buyer, and
there's very little the consumer can do to stop them from using it" anyway
they please, said Jason Catlett, president of Junkbusters.
Should Free-PC remain independent, advertisers might still be able to
match an individual and his data.