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In the 1982 movie Bladerunner, aggressive flashing billboards descend from the sky and chase Harrison Ford through the Los Angeles streets. The year is 2019.
Well, it's only 2000 now, but the hottest trend in Web delivery -- free Internet service -- makes Bladerunner seem prescient. These services promise unlimited Web access. In exchange, subscribers agree not only to dish out private data but to let floating, flashing ad banners dog them while they're online.
For a home business or sole proprietor, a few obnoxious ads and nosy surveys might seem a fair swap for unlimited Net access. Hey, ads pay for "free" network television. What's different about the Net? Yet, unlike TV, the Internet is a vital small-business tool. Pesky irritations for the occasional surfer could drive a businessperson mad. Fact is, the free ISPs are still a novelty. Some Web pundits predict they'll change the economics of telecommunications and e-commerce. Perhaps. For now, their drawbacks -- ads, patchy connections, and rudimentary customer service -- make them a poor choice for a business and a limited one for consumers.
EXPLORER'S WORLD.
Business Week Online tried five free services: NetZero, AltaVista Free Access, Excite FreeWorld, Juno, and WorldSpy on a portable PC with a Pentium chip and a 56K dial-up modem. I found that all of these services work similarly. All except NetZero required Microsoft's Web browser, Internet Explorer 4.0, or a more recent version. That was a big hassle, since Business Week computers -- portables included -- are configured for Netscape. We had to install Internet Explorer 5.0 and for WorldSpy, even had to make IE 5.0 the default browser.
The other annoyance, which all but WorldSpy share, is the floating banner, which refreshes itself with a different ad every half-minute or so. You can move the banner, but while you're online, it sits on top of whatever you're working on -- even offline documents. And, Bladerunner fans, the free ISPs' tracking technologies do pursue you. They accumulate data on your Web movements. You can tell because as you surf, the ads change to reflect the types of sites you visit.
The key question: Are these services really "free?" You do pay for telephone charges. Then there's your privacy. What's that worth to you? Here's a look at the contenders:
NetZero: This pioneer of free Internet service was launched over a year ago and claims to have 3 million users. Go to www.netzero.com to download the software, at 5 megabytes that can take a while over a slow modem. Click the NetZero icon to register. It takes an additional 20 minutes to provide the required demographic data -- the price of "free" service. NetZero wants to know about your online purchases, your car, your credit cards, and the people who live with you, among other things. You agree to let NetZero track your Web usage, sell that information in aggregate (minus names) to advertisers, and target ads to you based on it. Then, you select a local-access number.
Once you connect -- and that can take a few tries -- the ads appear immediately inside a garish and glowing banner called the "Zeroport," which took up about a quarter of my laptop screen. Buttons along the perimeter of the Zeroport let you check sports or stock market results or personalize it in other ways. But every time I tried to move the Zeroport to another part of the screen, I accidentally clicked on ads, launching unwanted product information. NetZero is relentless. It even lobs a pitch when you log off -- in my case, for Godiva chocolate.
AltaVista's Free Access and Excite FreeWorld: These services come to you from the popular portals. They're virtually identical, which is no accident, since 1stUp.com, owned by venture-capital fund CMGI, runs both. Free Access, which claims 1.7 million users, has been around since August. FreeWorld, which launched in January, 2000, won't say how many users it has.
To set them up, go to www.altavista.com or www.excite.com and download the software directly from the portals. This takes no more than five minutes. Click on the desktop icons, choose a user ID and password, and fill out the demographic forms. These are shorter than NetZero's, but otherwise not much different. Ditto, the user agreements. Free Access and FreeWorld also track your Web usage and sell aggregated data to advertisers.
My troubles began when I tried to log on -- to no avail. Neither service's customer support staff was much help. I left a message at Excite. After waiting a day for an answer, I called Excite's press office, which referred me to a vice-president for engineering at 1st Up, who tried for an hour to fix the problem without success.
Surly reps at AltaVista answered the phone quickly enough but gave the wrong advice. One insisted that our dial-up software needed upgrading. He told me to call back when I had completed the upgrade. (The software was fine.) Finally, Business Week technology columnist Steve Wildstrom figured out that I had overburdened my laptop's memory by installing all the free ISP programs at once. He told me to reinstall and test them one at a time. Sure enough. Two days after my first attempts, I logged on to FreeWorld and Free Access. Two days after that, Excite customer service called me back. A product manager assured me that this was an aberration and that customer service reps usually call back in less than 24 hours.
Once you're connected, you'll find the ad bars on the AltaVista and Excite services slightly less obtrusive than NetZero's, but you still can't get rid of them. They, too, have buttons that let you personalize them with stock quotes, sports scores, and e-mail.
Juno: This free service has been around since December. It's an offshoot of Juno's fee-based ISP ($19.95 a month), which started in 1998 and has more than 500,000 users. Juno won't say how many use the free version. Juno's software, like NetZero's, took a long time to download from www.juno.com. The sign-up process is the same as for the other services. Users answer a long list of demographic questions, choose a user ID and password, set up an e-mail account, and get local-access numbers. It took me a few tries to connect. A well-organized opening screen lets you check e-mail or go directly to the Web. When you choose the latter -- sure enough -- a floating, blinking ad bar pops up and sits on whatever you're working on as long as you're online.
WorldSpy: If you must have a free service, this is the one we recommend. Why? No ads and no data collection. How can this be? WorldSpy, in White Plains, N.Y., launched an e-commerce site in 1998 that sells an array of consumer goods. (No spy equipment in evidence, despite the name.) The company sees the free ISP, which claims 100,000 users, as a device to drive traffic to its mall. The mall homepage is the service's opening screen.
The software download from www.worldspy.com can also take a while. The registration process is standard, with one annoying difference: Besides a username and password, you need an access code. That's supposed to be for added security, but it's one more thing to remember. There's also a short demographic form -- but this one is optional.
Sharon Rothstein, WorldSpy's chief executive, says the company doesn't collect or sell information now, though the user agreement says it may do so. She declined to say whether the company plans to do that eventually.
We had some difficulty logging on to the site. It took a few calls to WorldSpy's customer service to sort out the trouble. Businesslike reps helped me reconfigure Internet Explorer as the default browser. That worked, and I was able to browse the Web "free," sans blinking, floating ads, anyway.
Lots of other free ISPs are available. As the latest gimmick in the give-it-all-away Web culture, new ones crop up daily. Yahoo! and Kmart, for instance, have teamed up to offer a free ISP called -- yes -- Bluelight (www.bluelight.com). Wait. It gets sillier. The homepage for the Simpsons (www.thesimpsons.com) offers a free ISP for the cartoon show's devotees, featuring an ad bar with messages from its sponsors.
Now there's a reassuring thought for the truly thrifty small-business person: You can cancel your ISP service and surf the Net with the Simpsons -- for free.
Copyright 2000 , by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
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