>From time to time business clients ask me for recommendations for new computers. I often recommend Dell, because if you work with an account manager you can get their pricing down to competitive levels, and they have good online support and business-class warranties.
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>A while back clients ordered enough equipment that I somehow got automatically entered into some sort of contest. One day an e-mail arrived informing me I had won a C$1,000 credit on certain Dell equipment lines. It turned out the e-mail was legit. It had an attached PDF with terms and conditions. Amongst those:
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>“Subject to applicable law, winners irrevocably grant the Sponsor (and its affiliates and agents) the right and permission to use their name, voice, likeness and/or contest entry content for advertising, promotional and/or publicity purposes in connection with the Contest, in all forms of media and by all manners (now and hereafter known), and on and in connection with related products, services, advertising and promotional materials (now known or hereafter developed), worldwide, in perpetuity, without any obligation, notice or consideration except for the awarding of the prize(s) to the winner(s).”
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>After being informed that the above clause indeed applies to "winners", I formally rejected the prize and demanded that Dell remove my name from the list of "winners", which they did.
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>Pretty sad that I had to take action to preserve my rights. I can't imagine that even someone applying to become a Dell partner (which I'm not) would be asked to agree to anything like this.
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>Completely separate from that, Dell is hard to recommend right now because delivery times on almost all their offerings are brutal - often 2 - 3 months. I remember the good old days when they would reliably deliver within 10 business days.

Pretty sad that you didn't want to sell your soul for $1000 :)

Thanks for sharing.