belkin joins the list of clueless
yet another company has decided to compromise [what should be] its core corporate value in a silly, offensive attempt to hook existing customers on new stuff. then compounds the error by spinning it as an “ease of use” issue, rather than confessing their sin and making it better.
as reported in the register, and seeding a lively online discussion, belkin is the latest to get my attention.
the offense from belkin is that a software “upgrade” applied to belkin routers periodically grabs an http session and redirects it to an ad page for belkin parental-control software. great idea. yes, of course i want to be hijacked by my own network.
no doubt someone in marketing came up with this. they didn’t think about the response from the customers when they figured it out (were they banking on stupidity?) they didn’t consider the impact on the trust relationship with their existing (and future) customers? they didn’t consider the impact of the realization that belkin not only has the technical ability (as does any other company providing network infrastructure components that are upgradable), but the willingness and intent to inject code into the customer network that results in unexpected behavior? could it be worse? did they consider these things (and others) and decide to implement this anyway?
sure, today’s upgrade might just be a nagging advertisement a few times a day, but tomorrow’s upgrade could be… oh, i dunno… a router that blocks access to competitors’ sites? i guess the sky’s the limit. that’s why it’s important to trust the vendors that provide infrastructure components, and trust is right where this one hits.
Eric Deming [that’s ericd@belkin.com] (quote via newswireless.net)Without trying to sound too stand-offish, we are not talking about SPAM here. Parental Control is a subscription service, and Belkin wanted to make registering for the service very easy. Traditional methods of registration, such as asking the user to go to a website or navigate to the Router’s internal Web page to enter information didn’t meet the ease-of-use goal.
Eric Deming [that’s ericd@belkin.com] (quote via the register)I know this feature might be misunderstood and might PO some people. I know the manual could do a better job explaining it. These are all things that we at Belkin are working to remedy.
i think we understand very well. we have a new definition to play with: “unsolicited commercial webpage.”
the basic premise here is that marketing people don’t make policy decisions any better than lawyers. funny, that.
surely, it can only be a matter of time before this overwhelmingly successful marketing tactic is employed by other companies. imagine your next ford playing ads for new ford accessories every few minutes on your radio. imagine your next dvd player interrupting movies periodically to remind you that the company that manufactured the dvd player has arrange an excellent deal for you to buy some particular brand of microwave popcorn. and, of course, your next cd player bringing you a friendly message from the riaa – “don’t rip this cd” in the middle of random tracks.
take the hint, companies. pissed off customers are not the kinds of customers you want.
congratulations belkin, you’ve joined the league of companies that have gone out of their way to prove they can’t be trusted. this great idea might just cost you everything.
additional info is available at slashdot, news wireless, boing boing, kuro5hin and surely many more to come.
update (2003.11.09 6ish iam): one last check at the belkin website reveals this:
Important message from Belkin:
Belkin is aware of some recent postings that claim that Belkin wireless routers are spamming users during the setup process and periodically thereafter. It is not now, nor has it ever been, the policy of Belkin to intentionally spam our customers or anyone else. Belkin offers a free trial of our parental control feature in our routers, and to make our customers aware of the feature itself and to give them the opportunity to take advantage of the free trial, we have tried to direct users to the information regarding the parental control features. However, since this has become a source of concern to our users, and it is Belkin policy to address the concerns of our users quickly, Belkin has decided to remove this function from the routers. Each router’s firmware that incorporates parental control as an option will be changed.
take it for what it’s worth, they’ve decided to pull the tactic.
update (2003.11.11 8:30am): the message has changed.
Important message from Belkin:
In response to a recent Usenet group posting stating that Belkin spams its customers through its routers, Belkin Corporation apologizes for the concern this has caused and is taking action to address the issue. To allay customers’ worries, Belkin will offer a firmware upgrade that will be available via download from its website (www.belkin.com) on November 17, 2003. This upgrade will rid the redirect completely so that no additional browser windows will appear during the router’s installation process. Questions can be directed to our dedicated networking customer support line at 877-736-5771 or e-mailed to kannynmc@belkin.com.