Bug Me Not is an Internet service that provides usernames and passwords to let Internet users bypass mandatory free registration on websites. It was started in August 2003 by an anonymous person, later revealed to be Guy King, and allowed Internet users to access websites that have registration walls (for instance, that of The New York Times) with the requirement of compulsory registration. This came in response to the increasing number of websites that request such registration, which many Internet users find to be an annoyance and a potential source of email spam.
Bug Me Not allows users of their service to add new accounts for sites with free registration. It also encourages users to use disposable email address services to create such accounts. However, it does not allow them to add accounts for paid websites, as this could potentially lead to credit card fraud.[3] Bug Me Not also claims to remove accounts for any website requesting that they do not provide accounts for non-registered users.
To help make access to their service easier, Bug Me Not hosts a bookmarklet that can be used with any browser to automatically find a usable account from their service. They also host extensions for the web browsers Mozilla Firefox (but not on Firefox quantum yet), Internet Explorer, and Google Chrome (the extensions were created by Eric Ha miter with Dmitri planer and Dean Wilson, respectively). There are also implementations in the form of a Bug Me Not Opera widget, or Users scripts along with buttons, which makes it fully browser-integrated. An Android application is also available.
Bug Me Not provides an option for site owners to block their site from the Bug Me Not database, if they match one or more of the following criteria:[5]
A community site where users register to change content, but not to view it (example: Wikipedia)
The site is pay-per-view
There is a fraud risk associated with the site due to accounts containing private financial information
No option is provided for users to request removing a block if a site ceases to meet the blocking criteria or has never met them in the first place.
Site blocking can be circumvented by Bug Me Not users by publishing usernames and passwords under a similar, but different, domain name to which they apply. For example, the owners of the domain abc.def.com might request a block to be put in place, but this will not prevent users uploading access information under the name of def.abc.com. Since one domain owner cannot demand that another domain be blocked, the information remains and is accessibly provided that Bug Me Not users tacitly agree that def.abc.com in fact refers to abc.def.com.[original research?] For example, Wikipedia logins are in the database under wikipedia.net because wikipedia.com and wikipedia.org have been ban under the first criterion.
The operators of Bug Me Not expanded that Bug Me Not network in October 2006 with the addition of Retail Me Not – a service for finding and sharing online coupon codes. Users can add coupons they have found through any method, as well as a description of the coupon and an expiration date. Users can also scan in printed coupons and upload them for others to print.
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