NetGear is running a contest that would be great to win because:

* Free flight to (and from) Vegas
* Free hotel room
* Daily per diem
* $2000 in cash (paid after completion of the work)
* I’ve never been to the Consumer Electronic Show — and it would be neat to go

Unfortunately however, the contest rules say this:

… Winner’s Obligations. In order to receive the prize listed in Section 5, the Winner must produce up to three daily postings about NETGEAR at the 2007 CES and about CES in general. The postings must be created by certain set times each day, which times will be communicated in advance to Winner by NETGEAR. The content of such postings will be subject to review by and final approval of NETGEAR prior to posting. …

That turns the lucky winner from a guest blogger into an employee under the control of NetGear. The whole point of this medium is that speech is free and can be used to express yourself. You can be honest … unless they don’t like what you say in this case. That’s not worth it to me, even for a trip. Now if it said they had an opportunity to review and suggest revisions/enhancements/etc. that would be fine.

I always reserve the right to say what I think, and for a couple of thousand dollars and a really cool trip, I’m not willing to trade. Good luck in the competition to those of you who are. If someone from NetGear is willing to meet me half way on this as suggested above, then let me know so I can get my contest entry in.

The part I love about the contest is the criteria for picking the winner. The rule says, there is no rules: “NETGEAR will select, in its sole discretion and based on any criteria it deems appropriate, one winning blogger”. Seriously, I like that. I wish I could enter.

This article was posted on Friday, December 1st, 2006 at 3:59 pm