The Philadelphia Inquirer and its questionable statistics
In Digital History, the authors site a statistic by the Philadelphia Inquirer that “only about 10 to 15 percent of their 300,000 registered users had entered bad email addresses.” What I want to know is what qualifies as a bad email address because that statistic seems skewed to me. I always give real email addresses, but they are rarely email addresses that are “mine” (I always give the screenname + aol.com address even though I can never check it). Also, I think that people do not have as big of concerns giving email addresses and other information to newspapers. It would have been a truer statistic to have used an internet-only site that did not have a repudiated business attached to it. What are your feelings on email addresses and giving yours out to websites?
January 31st, 2006 at 12:29 am
I have a dedicated “spam” e.mail address, so I do not hesitate to give out “my” e.mail address if I feel that the information on the site is worth filling out a form.
As for the “dead” e.mail addresses, I think one of the other readings mentioned that a “dead” contact would be when an e.mail bounces back, a phone number is disconnected, etc.
January 31st, 2006 at 1:05 pm
You make an interesting point, that just because the email doesn’t bounce back doesn’t mean it’s a good one. I also have an email address that I only use when sites ask me for it. I also wonder, though, what’s to prevent people from putting in random email addresses that just happen to be real…no one would know that they were actually bad emails.
January 31st, 2006 at 3:19 pm
Is there anything wrong with giving a bad email address? Or giving false information about yourself? I think the authors made a good point about people’s fear of identity theft, fraud, and spam. I think you make a good point, it all depends on the website. If I trust the website and actually want to get emails from them, then I have no problem giving out my email address. But if it is a website I do not plan on using again or am hesitant to trust then I probably will not give them a correct email address.