Co-reg: Stay Clear!

A while ago I was researching with a business partner the concept know as ‘Co-Registration’. Put simply, this is where you sign up for something and get automatically added to more than one list.

This type of practice is done for a number of reasons.

Let’s say two or three people re collaborating on a project…it may be a product that they have developed together or a giveaway event they are working together in hosting. Then this would seem to be a natural thing to do as the leads equally belong to all of the parties in the business equation.

Another reason would be to host a giveaway event with just one squueze page on the front end and then, once subscribed (to each contributors lists) the subscriber can download all of the gifts without opting in each time. Again sound logical and (given adequate disclosure before subscribing) ethical.

NOT SO!

Both of these scenarios are directly against the TOS of all of the autoresponder services and, should receive a complaint, they will close your account and wave you goodbye.

Now, my experience with this is quite telling, both about the legality of co-registration and the types of people that trawl around the net.

We did not launch a co-reg event. We did ask for potential contributors to sign up with us with the idea of testing it out as we had seen others running similar types of events for some time. These contributors were added to both of our lists.

One marketer contacted me and basically read me the riot act. He called the concept of co-registration “illegal and unethical, cruel and shameless‘ and told me he would report me to my autoresponder company.

Sure enough, a couple of weeks later my account with that company was closed down without warning.

So that tells you something about co-registration. Don’t do it!

But this tells you more about the kind of low-lifes that you often find in the solo ad/email marketing world.

The other day I registered with a clean, ‘virgin’ email address to an event being run by that same marketer. What a surprise it was to see that I was added to his list and someone else’s list from the same sign-up form. I received spam mails about downloads I had not requested almost immediately. Hypocrisy on a grand scale.

So, be careful out there. Stay clear of any co-registration and watch out for people who will stride around being a ‘unelected internet policemen’ but are doing exactly what they are reporting people for themselves.