Offers of free Web service are mushrooming. In the last several months, they have become a powerful come-on to both novice and experienced Net surfers willing to cede some privacy and convenience.
Many free services say they are already signing up thousands of users a day.
Any erosion of subscription prices in the ISP market threatens to do serious financial damage to the traditional service providers. But the jury is out on whether the free ISPs can attract the large and loyal subscriber bases commanded by the traditional services. Independent surveys suggest, moreover, that the users of free ISPs tend to be, in the aggregate, less desirable to advertisers than Web surfers as a whole. NetZero, for instance, requires users to fill out a 40-item questionnaire eliciting personal data as well as marketing habits and buying predilections. We know, the minute they sign on, who they are and where they go.