Washington Post to Require Some Registration Info

Editor and Publisher is reporting ( http://tinyurl.com/ytp ) that The Washington Post will begin requiring demographic information to read stories on the site. Currently WashingtonPost.com is only asking for readers to voluntarily provide that information, but starting August 14 supplying the information will be mandatory.

If you visit http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/metro/ you'll see that WashingtonPost.com is making the information request at the top of their page. Click on the "Tell Me More" link at the top of the page and you'll get a popup box requesting your gender, year of birth, zip code (for US residents only) and zip code.

There is no way to register with a username on this box, so I'm assuming that WashingtonPost.com is tracking this information with cookies, or else we have to enter information every time we visit the site (yuck.) Of course, many people like me either reject cookies or dump them at the end of every browser session. Frankly I'd rather be able to register.

Or even pay! $2 a month or something for access to 30 days' worth of the Washington Post. Surely the WP would make more from a $2/month subscription fee than they would from my eyeballs looking at ads?

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