All of the following is purely speculation at the moment.

Do you know how you get those annoying pop up's (maybe not in FireFox very often, but in IE?) Well, you'll often see one saying "Here, claim a completely free $50 coupon to restaurant of your choice!" with a little * down at the bottom saying something like *see offer details ?

Well, I've been wondering, is it possible to get these 50 bucks coupons for TGI's or osmething so long as you just give an email address and fill out some small form? Unless they ask for a credit card # or something dubious, you could do that pretty easily right? And since people have Gmail nowadays, you could just supply one of those address with no fear of Spam. And you could get a $50 dollar gift certificate free?

Is it worth the effort? I'm curious if anyone's ever been brave enough to try? Discuss.

(it probably won't owrk, but I'm curious for some input.)

To get the "Free" gift, you usally have to buy stuff from somewhere else, or sign up for some service or another.

Yup. It's never free. EVER.

Well, that was shot down. I guess I would have had to have been pretty naive to have expected any more though.

Yah, I actually tried this out a few days ago, due to the same curious spirit... I tried to get a free plasma TV, but it turned out that you had to sign up for AOL, buy a 2-year subscription to some magazine, and sign up for some satellite television service.

NOTHING (except warez and linux) is free online. Nothing.

Can't believe you forgot GOOGLE Page. (Not to mention all the cool free and legal stuff I've managed to find WITH Google.)

hehe I tried to get a free ipod and it said I had to sign up for 6 friggin offers. I suppose it would probably be cheaper than spending all that for an ipod. Do you really get the stuff? Ever? I'm thinnking about doing it.

In addition to signing up for various "offers" (and having to purchase subscriptions to things), you usually have to give them information more personal than just an email address - like a postal address or phone number.

SO they can spam you in every way for the rest of your life. Expect postal spam, email spam, marketers calling, and probably spyware and other misc crap.