Does the above Submission Guideline apply to parody titles, too? Seems it should, for the same reasons.

http://www.amiright.com/parody/70s/rfs5.shtml
http://www.amiright.com/parody/2000s/freecreditreportcom4.shtml

Also, the band, freecreditreport.com, was created solely for advertising the scam website at that URL. It offers your credit report for a fee, and/or with strings attached, like auto-enrollment in a monitoring service with a monthly fee charged to your credit card. US consumers are entitled by law to one free copy per twelve-month period (rolling) from each of the three major credit bureaus, Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. The *official* and correct site, maintained per the US law on credit reporting, is

https://www.annualcreditreport.com

No fee. Not that they might not try to sell  you something, but you still get the report for free. That site is trustworthy. The other one, a blatant attempt to lead consumers to the wrong site, is not official, so you are giving your name, date of birth, Social Security number, address, and other valuable personal information, useful for identity theft, to a non-sanctioned organization that is not restricted in what it can do with that information.

Privacy Policy (excerpt) from  freecreditreport.com:

DO WE DISCLOSE INFORMATION TO THIRD PARTIES?
We may disclose information about you to affiliated and non-affiliated third parties.
    * Affiliates. We may disclose the information that we collect to our affiliated companies to provide the products you request, to enhance our products to better suit your needs, and from time to time for marketing purposes.
    * Business Partners. We may partner with other companies to offer you products or services or to fulfill the products or services that you order. We may disclose personal information and/or non-personal or de-identified information collected about you to such third-party partners for the purposes described in this Policy

The official site, which contacts the three credit bureaus for you:

Each third party receiving this information is either required to (i) abide by the restrictions in this privacy policy and is not permitted to use or disclose the information for any purpose other than as described in this policy, or (ii) receive and use the information in compliance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act, Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act of 2003, Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and other regulatory and legal requirements

From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeCreditScore.com

FreeCreditScore.com

Not to be confused with the U.S. federally mandated website, Annualcreditreport.com. (italics were theirs, not mine -- TT)

FreeCreditScore.com and FreeCreditReport.com are websites owned by Experian Consumer Direct, a subsidiary of the credit bureau Experian. The sites offer users their personal credit reports from Experian on the condition that they sign up for Experian's Triple Advantage credit monitoring program for a fee. The credit report also comes with the user's PLUS credit score. The membership may be canceled with no charge within 7 days of signup.
The sites, their benefactors, and related business entities have received multiple federal injunctions on deceptive marketing and business practices.

Abusive practices

FreeCreditReport.com has been the subject of two major lawsuits. In 2005, the site's owner, Experian Consumer Direct, was sued by the Federal Trade Commission for deceptive marketing tactics. They settled for $950,000 in the form of free credit monitoring for those affected and agreed not to use deceptive and misleading claims about free offers and to offer full disclosure of terms and conditions of any free offers.... The penalty was largely seen as ineffective since it amounted to a small fraction of the $72 million dollar annual advertising budget for free credit report. They were further subjected to a 2006 inquiry by the Florida Attorney General for violating Florida's Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act. An MSNBC.com investigation of the website called it "misleading", "deceptive" and a "scam". The program has also been identified as a scam by ConsumerFraudReporting.org.

The same writer also used that band name in another song today: http://www.amiright.com/parody/2000s/freecreditreportcom3.shtml
That song is also one line short of the "10 unique lines" minimum, unless the single-word exclamation of TOS singer's name is included.

If this writer is trying to pick up a little extra cash by spamlinking, especially to a scam site, that seems more than ample grounds for banning.

(It should be noted that Phil Alexander's capitalized title posted today, "FIFA" is an abbreviation of a proper noun, the name of an organization, and hence, it is correct to capitalize all letters, as in USA, NFL, PETA, etc.)

Does the above Submission Guideline apply to parody titles, too? Seems it should, for the same reasons.

http://www.amiright.com/parody/70s/rfs5.shtml
http://www.amiright.com/parody/2000s/freecreditreportcom4.shtml

Also, the band, freecreditreport.com, was created solely for advertising the scam website at that URL. It offers your credit report for a fee, and/or with strings attached, like auto-enrollment in a monitoring service with a monthly fee charged to your credit card. US consumers are entitled by law to one free copy per twelve-month period (rolling) from each of the three major credit bureaus, Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. The *official* and correct site, maintained per the US law on credit reporting, is

https://www.annualcreditreport.com

No fee. Not that they might not try to sell  you something, but you still get the report for free. That site is trustworthy. The other one, a blatant attempt to lead consumers to the wrong site, is not official, so you are giving your name, date of birth, Social Security number, address, and other valuable personal information, useful for identity theft, to a non-sanctioned organization that is not restricted in what it can do with that information.

Privacy Policy (excerpt) from  freecreditreport.com:

The official site, which contacts the three credit bureaus for you:

From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeCreditScore.com

The same writer also used that band name in another song today: http://www.amiright.com/parody/2000s/freecreditreportcom3.shtml
That song is also one line short of the "10 unique lines" minimum, unless the single-word exclamation of TOS singer's name is included.

If this writer is trying to pick up a little extra cash by spamlinking, especially to a scam site, that seems more than ample grounds for banning.

(It should be noted that Phil Alexander's capitalized title posted today, "FIFA" is an abbreviation of a proper noun, the name of an organization, and hence, it is correct to capitalize all letters, as in USA, NFL, PETA, etc.)



freecreditreport.com run television ads with some stupid jingle which is what he is parodying.  the only way he could possibly make money from that is if there was more to the URL to identify himself with them.  since there isn't, I don't think he's trying to advertise for them.  I do sometimes allow a 9 or even an 8 line parody if the lines are fairly long.  There's other ads on the site with parodies for them as well.

freecreditreport.com run television ads with some stupid jingle which is what he is parodying.  the only way he could possibly make money from that is if there was more to the URL to identify himself with them.  since there isn't, I don't think he's trying to advertise for them.  I do sometimes allow a 9 or even an 8 line parody if the lines are fairly long.  There's other ads on the site with parodies for them as well.

OK, thanks. Since the "band" name is in fact a URL, I also wanted to post here to warn any viewers who might go to that site out of curiosity.

For clarification, the no-all-caps rule does *not* apply to parody titles that aren't proper-noun abbreviations? Could start a bad trend, in the quest for home-page attention. Imagine several parodies in one day of "I AM THE VERY MODEL OF A MODERN MAJOR-GENERAL" and "SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS" in all caps.  >shudders<

Or just long parody *titles*: I wouldn't think of submitting a parody title like CHRISTINA AGUILERA'S SECOND TRY AT THE SUPER BOWL STAR-MANGLED BLATHER in all caps -- it's a cheap trick for an already-long, but descriptive and punny, title. Cheers.

OK, thanks. Since the "band" name is in fact a URL, I also wanted to post here to warn any viewers who might go to that site out of curiosity.

For clarification, the no-all-caps rule does *not* apply to parody titles that aren't proper-noun abbreviations? Could start a bad trend, in the quest for home-page attention. Imagine several parodies in one day of "I AM THE VERY MODEL OF A MODERN MAJOR-GENERAL" and "SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS" in all caps.  >shudders<

Or just long parody *titles*: I wouldn't think of submitting a parody title like CHRISTINA AGUILERA'S SECOND TRY AT THE SUPER BOWL STAR-MANGLED BLATHER in all caps -- it's a cheap trick for an already-long, but descriptive and punny, title. Cheers.


Personally, I always skip all cap things, they are annoying and usually indicate someone who doesn't have a true interest in writing and instead just wants attention (I stress usually). . .freecreditreport.com does suck, but they aren't a true scam site in the sense that they are a legitimate business, but I too think they are full of bull--you shouldn't be allowed to claim "Free" credit report unless it truly is free--no string attached, but by law they are in the clear. . .

Personally, I always skip all cap things, they are annoying and usually indicate someone who doesn't have a true interest in writing and instead just wants attention (I stress usually). .
Agree completely, thanks.


.freecreditreport.com does suck, but they aren't a true scam site in the sense that they are a legitimate business, but I too think they are full of bull--you shouldn't be allowed to claim "Free" credit report unless it truly is free--no string attached, but by law they are in the clear. . .

Actually, they're only in the clear because of repeated prosecutions. As quoted in my OP on this topic, they settled with the FTC for deceptive marketing practices, though it amounted to a small slap on the wrist, unfortunately. And that they have been the subject of multiple injunctions. I guess obeying those injunctions -- the bar at the top, in small print, advising that you're signing up for a monthly service, some more fine print in the middle,

Calculated on the PLUS Score model, your Experian Credit Score indicates your relative credit risk level for educational purposes and is not the score used by lenders.

If it's not the one used by lenders, it isn't of much value...

* Due to New York state law restrictions, the freecreditreport.com Guarantee cannot be offered to residents of New York"

Guess they're not in the clear in at least one state. When will the other 49 follow?

My understanding was that they also agreed to warn prospective customers that this was *not* the site set up under US law to provide consumers with their truly-free report from *all three* major credit bureaus, rather than only one of them (Experian). Didn't see that on their home page.

@ ChuckyG: Still would like to know if the ban on all-caps does or doesn't apply to parody *titles*, except where it's a legitmate abbreviation ("YMCA"). Thanks.

I did not know that, Good job NY on that one, hope the other states DO follow--its wrong, knowing that its seen as illegal, well that actually makes me happier than a cat with cat nip

@ ChuckyG: Still would like to know if the ban on all-caps does or doesn't apply to parody *titles*, except where it's a legitmate abbreviation ("YMCA"). Thanks.


all caps are fine for things like YMCA and I've let them go through in the past.

all caps are fine for things like YMCA and I've let them go through in the past.

I'm sorry, I'm doing a very poor job of explaining myself here. One more try:

I agree that abbreviations of proper nouns, such as YMCA, *should* be capitalized, as correct grammar.

The question was about some parody titles that are *not* abbreviations, but full words, and were put in all caps. Like, say, http://www.amiright.com/parody/70s/rfs5.shtml

Sorry it wasn't clear. Thanks.

I'm sorry, I'm doing a very poor job of explaining myself here. One more try:

I agree that abbreviations of proper nouns, such as YMCA, *should* be capitalized, as correct grammar.

The question was about some parody titles that are *not* abbreviations, but full words, and were put in all caps. Like, say, http://www.amiright.com/parody/70s/rfs5.shtml

Sorry it wasn't clear. Thanks.


that one should have probably been ProperCased.  I don't always catch them, and I'm usually too lazy to go back and fix them after the fact.  The rule is that if an author doesn't properly capitalize things I'll click the script and do it for them.  If I'm in a hurry approving entries I might miss one from time to time though.

that one should have probably been ProperCased.  I don't always catch them, and I'm usually too lazy to go back and fix them after the fact.  The rule is that if an author doesn't properly capitalize things I'll click the script and do it for them.  If I'm in a hurry approving entries I might miss one from time to time though.


OK Thanks. I didn't think that "NOWHERE" required CamelCase, just the first letter as usual: "Nowhere".

Probably wouldn't have caught my eye except that the same author posted on the same day a parody *title* in all caps, of a *parody in all caps*, which was quite properly deleted. Didn't want that writer to get in the habit of using all-caps titles, or to set a bad precedent for others.