News Corp offers readers free digital subscriptions in exchange for their data
News Corp is asking readers to exchange their personal data in return for free access to its online websites, in a bid to improve its ad targeting capabilities.
Users who have registered their email address with the News+ service to access content on sites including the Herald Sun and Daily Telegraph, but are not paying subscribers, are being offered a chance to get beyond the paywalls by completing surveys in exchange for free access.
The beta trial, called Connect, offers participants redemption offers in exchange for participating in surveys designed to extract valuable information from them which will be used to serve “more relevant advertising” using a points system.
A News Corp Australia spokesperson told Mumbrella: “We are undertaking a small, beta trial to find out more about our registered readers, to better understand our users’ media preferences and to serve more relevant advertising.”
When registering News Corp asks participants to give their gender, date of birth, postcode, household structure and favourite publication out of the News Corp titles. In exchange for the information News Corp provides participants with 10 points to kickstart them on their way to free digital access.
Readers will need 30 points to get two weeks full digital access to News Corp sites, while 50 points gets four weeks of access. Different surveys have a different number of points attached to them, with a sponsored survey from Toyota about which car best suits you carrying 18 points.
Other surveys on the site cover topics such as your home, including information on your gas and electricity provider, your car including the brand and when you renew registration, yourself which covers off your relationship and family status and employment, newspaper reading habits, telecommunications and car insurance, with the promise of new surveys on an ongoing basis.
They can then redeem the points for full digital access to News Corp titles The Herald Sun, The Advertiser, The Courier Mail and The Daily Telegraph for either two or four weeks.
Once a subscription has been made using the points, readers can access content on the site and manage their Connect membership, with details of points and days left of the subscription available in the right hand corner of the webpage. 
Miranda Ward
Miranda Ward worked for Mumbrella from 2013 to 2017, eventually becoming deputy editor. Miranda joined Mumbrella in September 2013 from Sky News.
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The Daily Telegraph
So my personal data is worth 1/3 of a 2 week subscription to the Daily Telegraph. Ummm – no thanks.
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So it’s pure profile for news content?
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But it’s fairly straight forward to get past the paywall anyway. Or have they beefed up the security lately? I haven’t felt the urge to read any of News’ crap content for the last couple of weeks so I haven’t had the need to “hack” the paywall.
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Nobody wants to pay for Newspaper content online anymore – boring, old and often biase.
News should be opened up to Netflix style subscriber services where users have the choice to read what they want, from who they want.
TV’s subscription revolution is happening. The newspaper revolution is about to happen. I give it 2 years.
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Very, very good work by News Corp and Ambiata. This will future proof News for years to come.
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This is a hilarious attempt by News to get with the times.
A. The paywall for Herald Sun content is easily circumvented by copying the title into Google.
B. Other publishers have been grabbing user data since at least 2011 – its 2014 and NOW they realise they need to step it up a notch?
C. As a media buyer, the likes of News and Fairfax are the last on my consideration list – they havent improved their offering in 15 yaers, attempt to package print with everything (who cares?) and if I want scale, I’ll get targeted scale by going to the likes of Tribal Fusion, etc
Sorry News, maybe in another 10 years!
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News continues to miss the point: the kind of people who read their products do not want their personal data recorded.
People WILL pay for their product, but they will not pay for it when someone is snooping over their shoulder, reporting to unknown parties about what they read and have interests in.
If News wants more subscriptions, the solution is right there – sell prepaid cards at newsagents, allowing people to enjoy their product anonymously.
Seriously, the solution is so obvious that a Rhesus Monkey could understand it.
What is News’ problem?
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Classic News Corp.
Umm, what’s a data?
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These paywalls are a joke. How would you like to be an advertiser with your banner appearing on one of these “subscriber only” pages?
To get around the paywall, simple open a different browser.
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As a reader, the News subscription frustrates the hell out of me – basically becuase it keeps locking me out. I’ve subscribbbed to The Australian and Herald Sun aps via iTunes – but regularly am blocked and have to resubscibe – and then there is the separate system of subscribing directly with News if you need to read online as opposed to on the app. By the time I’ve jumped through all the hoops I’ve finished my morning coffee and it’s time for work. As a result I’ve ditched the Herald Sun and The Australian subscription is looking shaky too.
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If anyone thinks their personal data is worth yesterdays digitial fish and chips wrapping – someone give them a hug and tell them they look great in whatever they are wearing. Because their self-esteem must be really low to take that deal.
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@PPeter – yup classic probelm with Digitial Rights Management.
The music, computer game, boom and television publishers have figured this one out already – all you will ever achieve with DRM is making your legitimate product less user-friendly than piracy. DRM doesn’t hurt pirates – it only hurts paid customers.
If News Ltd had been paying attention they would have realised the rest of the world already knew this and was being very public about it. Heck, I’m not even in publishing and I knew about it – for them to not know that DRM doesn’t work by is pretty embarrassing, considering that its hurting their shareholders as we speak.
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At least there is a value exchange here. What do Facebook give us in return for gobbling up all our personal data?
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@Jo….. “Value exchange”…. I’d be curious to hear whether you have a News IP address! We accept Facebook’s intrusions because it’s social media.
News offers nothing and is well behind the curve (as above, by about 5 – 10 years!)
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@jo. Facey give us fast, intuitive, really easy to use access to photos, sharing, gossip, real breaking news (loads more).
News give us biased, one sided drivel to suit their overlords agenda.
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Cool so I can get access by telling News Corp and it’s advertisers that I’m an 85 year old interested in rock climbing and extreme sports. With 42 children living with me in my 2 bedroom flat.
Not that I’d bother reading their rubbish anyway
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@Jo. “What do Facebook give us in return for gobbling up all our personal data?”
They give you Facebook.
You know, that website that you visit every day to keep connected with your family and friends but you don’t pay anything to use.
“If you don’t pay for a product then you are the product.”
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I have free access with my daily newpaper delivery. Some one stole the paper off my lawn the other morning….
While I waited for my paper to be redlivered, I thought I’d try this program out. It all looked quite good on the iPad, but my data tracker said that one paper used up 40mb of data! I hope this isn’t normal. Would be over a gig of data per month. Think I’ll stick with my paper.
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@ David..
Stick with the paper champ. Just steal your neighbours paper next time!
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News has always made me LOL – this pathetic attempt to get with times makes ROFL.
PS – the value exchange mentioned above is a joke. Those subscriptions are meaningless!!!
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Who says users need to provide correct information in the aforementioned surveys?
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