Why do so many people seem to dislike the registration required to browse articles on the New York Times’ web site? It’s true that you have to provide some minor demographic information about yourself to register, and you might end up with a bit of spam here and there (though I don’t recall having gotten any because of it). Nonetheless, you don’t have to provide your street address or even your real name to register. It’s a slight hassle, to be sure, but it’s well worth the few seconds it takes to fill out the form, and from what I can see, it’s hardly an invasion of privacy.

No, the New York Times’ registration is hardly evil. What’s evil is the mandatory registration form for that west-coast monolith, the Los Angeles Times— a “feature” which, in fact, was only implemented recently. As I said, I can easily handle giving away a few bits of basic, anonymous demographic information– but being forced to provide my name, address and phone number just so I can browse the day’s news from a paper all the way across the country from me is, in my opinion, more than a bit excessive…