Some critics say that Fogdog Sports is "playing out of
bounds" with a new marketing program that "involves
customers turning over their friends' email addresses" to
the company, according to Stefanie Olsen of CNET News.com.
Under the "Draft-A-Friend" program, customers give Fogdog
the email addresses of "up to 25 friends," and the company
then sends those friends a $10 coupon for the Web site. The
"original customers" receive 20% off their next purchases
and the "chance to win free merchandise if their friends use
the coupons." Olsen wrote that "such marketing programs are
becoming standard practice for online retailers," but
critics say that "turning friends into marketing bait
breaches the code of ethics" of the online world. Int'l
Data Corp. e-commerce analyst Barry Parr said Fogdog's
program "doesn't pass the sniff test for spam. It crosses
the border of being a legitimate promotion to an abuse of
people's relationships on the Net." But Fogdog Dir of
Sponsorship & Promotion John Mousseau said that the company
took "consumer privacy into account" before launching the
promo: "We're checking for fraud, and if people are posting
on newsgroups, we kick them out of the program. We've had
less than a handful of complaints" (CNET News.com, 3/15).
