This morning, while perusing all the postings my aggregator gobbled up overnight, I noticed that a bunch of people posted links to VoteOrNot.com, specifically affiliate links. VoteOrNot.com appears to be a sweepstakes being run by the guys from HotOrNot.com, allowing people to register to vote in the November election and aiming to give $100,000 to one person who registers through the site. They’re also going to give $100,000 to the person who refers the eventual winner, hence the affiliate links from everyone.

I figured that it would be a no-brainer to go over and sign up; while I’m registered to vote, I’m not averse to winning money by encouraging others to do so. Then I took a look at the signup form, though, and started thinking twice about the whole deal. They ask for my email address, physical address, and phone number, and make sure to have a statement above the form saying that they only need it to contact me if I win (sounds good). But then they ask me to agree to their Terms & Conditions, which says that by registering for the site, I “may sign up to receive email from Eight Days, Inc. (Sponsor),” and that I “can remove [myself] from the email list by following onscreen instructions” (sounds a bit more suspicious). And then came the kicker: under the personal information section of the T&C, I’m referred to the Eight Days, Inc. Privacy Policy, “available at Sponsor’s web site, http://HOTorNOT.com,” but going to that site, there’s no privacy policy anywhere to be seen or found. Even a Google search turns up nothing.

And that’s the ball game; they ain’t getting my personal information. You’d figure that a site that’s trying to encourage people to get out and exercise their civic duty would exercise a bit of its own…

Update: After an email interchange with James Hong, one of the founders of HotOrNot and VoteOrNot, a privacy policy is now in place at VoteOrNot that seems strong enough to make someone feel comfortable giving up personal info. James also let me know where to find the policy on the HotOrNot site — it’s in the tiny little scroll box on the page that lets you submit a picture for rating. Seems odd to hide it like that, but then again, it does say that they will “provide this personal information to third-party service providers who help us maintain our Service and deliver information and services to you and other users of our Service.”