This morning I got an email from FastWeb with the title ‘FastWeb Alert’. At first I wondered if I had finally been awarded one of the many scholarships I had applied for. As suspected, that was not the case.

The first paragraph of the email was as follows:

Recently, a column appeared in Newsweek (full article can be found here: http://www.newsweek.com/id/135371) analyzing FastWeb, how we operate, and the services we offer. While we were disheartened to read this criticism of FastWeb - as we feel we truly provide a valuable service in matching you with the right opportunities to obtain free money to help you pay for school - we were also inspired by the students and educators who responded to us, (and some even to Newsweek editors!) referencing their dissatisfaction with the column.

The news article is very interesting and reveals a lot of points my friends and I have discussed. It goes into detail how FastWeb is being used by corporate sponsors for cheap promotion.

An instance is brought up about a Chuck E. Cheese scholarship. It suggested singing up to its newsletter when applying for the scholarship. This is a simple way to harvest many emails to use in promotions later on.

According to Chuck E. Cheese spokesperson Brenda Holloway, more than 1.6 million contestants signed up for the contest, which ended last week. She doesn’t specify how many of those joined the club (typically in contests, the majority of entrants take the suggested path), but did say that the club’s population rose. That’s hundreds of thousands of new Chuck E. members, at a cost of to the company of a few pennies each. And only one got a scholarship.

I agree very much so with this article. FastWeb is a lottery of sorts.

Now, in their defense.. I do think it would be awfully hard to try to offer scholarships to this many people. It just just the whole website seems to be over monetized and the initial goal seems to have been forgotten.