Again, its not really a secret. Without a doubt doubt you have probably already unfortunately discovered that most Free Offers online aren’t really free and sometimes aren’t even offers! There are many covert hooks and snares out there that result in you winding up on sucker lists. Their costs are time and bother. You may have been cautious and diligent for many years of your digital life and then on a whim you responded to an offer to download something for free, signed up to play a free game, responded to an email to get free movie tickets, taken a radom survey, or offered your opinion only to find you have just opened yourself up to unsolicited junk mail and opened Pandora’s box. You may have innocently participated in the online survey, signed up for a product discount or registered on a site only to find out the offer wasn’t what it seemed. Often they don’t even bother to deliver on the offer or promises that drew you in the first place, but now your email and vital information is in their sweaty little paws and once in their database they begin to do their worst with disturbing marketing calls at all times of day and night, and unsolicited junk email that clutters up your email accounts. Once the floodgates are open you will find it extremely time consuming and difficult to stop. Even unsubscribing has unintended and unexpected effects because what you have done is that you have just verified your presence and successful receipt of the junk. The bogus offers seem to spawn and replicate beyond anyones ability to monitor or control.
Be overly cautious and diligent if you desire to uncomplicate and unclutter your online life. Understand that if an offer seems to good to be true it probably isn’t. If you feel like a tiny fish swimming in a big pond heavy with baited hooks and shiny lures that masquerade as deals is because this is the sea you swim in.
Some deals aren’t deals take for instance :
The bait: Normally $99, but now only $0. FREE for 1 Week 
The hook: if you bite. you would have just signed up for a paid service that requires your approval to automatically deduct the full payment from your bank or credit card after the “free” week.
In the above case you were required to allow them access and control to your Twitter or Facebook account exposing your following to their hyped messages and postings in order to simply get access to the video. The question is. is this worth the price of selling your followers down the river? If they get the sense you did it they will never trust you again and will “unfollow” you quick, fast, and in a hurry. There goes all your good will and hard work.
5/5/11:
I bought a Dr. Pepper soda. The advertising on the bottle said “A winner on every bottle”. What was necessary was signing up online with complete information to discover what you won. The entry number was on the bottle cap. The prize was a coupon for another soda. I dread the frlood of junk I may have just opted in for. Whatever it is is not worth the exposure I have opened myself up for. Such is the way of modern marketing. More trouble than it is worth.
