Free Ipods!
Just like Microsoft has bought a whole heap of web developers with Aquantive, anyone buying Valueclick maybe buying a whole lot of angry consumers complaining they didn’t get their free Ipods. The WSJ has a fascinating article on the FTC investigation, including a guy who signed up to Vonage and a Wine club in the hope of getting a ‘free’ laptop. He didn’t get the laptop in the end and has been complaining to Valueclick, the BBB and the FTC since.
If you don’t know what a ‘free ipod’ offer and its many incarnations are, go read this great post describing exactly how they work.
Of most interest in the article was this. The ‘free ipod’ segment of Valueclick is “a business that represents a third of ValueClick’s revenue and has been a source of financial strength recently could be squeezed, according to Jordan Rohan, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets.”
