Dear Microsoft: "Free" better mean FREE.

As you probably know, I'm no fan of the evil empire - that is, Microsoft - which has alternately blessed and cursed the home computer/software world since it's inception over 20 years ago. Microsoft has been staunchly against freedom in home computing since the beginning, striking out through patents and litigation to restrict access and use on computers from any methods on than those that they explicitly control and profit from. While this worked and maybe even benefited us-the-users back in the day, that day is over - the day of the large, expensive, bulky operating system filled with large, expensive and bulky software.

Microsoft's taken hits in recent years from visionary companies like Google who've set out to give people what they want: great products at really cheap, often free, prices.

Recently, Microsoft's been making gestures as if they've finally gotten the clue. Bill Gates is stepping down from his position as master of the Dark Side and turning most of his responsibilities over to Darth Ray Ozzie, who will allegedly take the company in new, better, more hopeful directions. First and foremost, they're going to try to understand this "Internet" thing, and why it's so big.

In an effort to restore some of their long flagging street cred, Microsoft recently began reskinning all of their services to look just like Google, and even started talking about giving things away for free. One of these things caught my eye this past week: Free domain name registration and web hosting for small websites! I've had RedHurtMachine.com for a year now, but never wanted to shell out the $40 to get a hosting plan behind it through GoDaddy. I was excited at the prospect of switching to a free server. This isn't something Google offers yet. Maybe Microsoft is really turning over a new leaf!

Maybe not. Four steps into a registration web-page that can only be accessed through Internet Exploder, Microsoft asked for my credit card number. Why? This is supposed to be free! I clicked the, "why do you need it?" link, and this is what it said:

"We also require a credit card to facilitate payment of services during the beta (e.g., the purchase of additional domain names) as well as at the conclusion of the beta period, when customers will be asked if they would like to continue using our services on a paid, monthly subscription basis."

There's nothing saying that the standard basic account is in Beta, or that the Beta trial period will ever end, so maybe this message doesn't apply to the standard account. It's hard to say - they certainly don't. I might try it, but I don't trust them. I want to believe them, but it's hard to put faith in a company so determined to take my money and keep decent products like FireFox out of the game.

Thoughts?

Jacks, I had two doughnuts this morning. They were good. That's kind of like a muffin.