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To: steve harris who wrote (98704)	2/10/2000 3:56:00 PM
From: L. Adam Latham	Respond to of 186894

steve: Here's a casualty of the "free-pc" phenomenon. Adam techweb.com Free-PC.com Gives Users Machines, Exits (02/10/00, 10:59 a.m. ET) By Mo Krochmal, TechWeb Free-PC.com, the company that jolted computer manufacturers' business models last year when it announced it was giving away thousands of computers, is now cutting the strings attached to the free deals. Users on Tuesday began to receive e-mails from the company telling them their computers would be theirs to keep. "As part of our recent merger with eMachines, we have decided to terminate the Free-PC and FreePCNet programs," the company said on its website. "We will transfer title of your PC to you." The company is including instructions on how to uninstall the software used to project advertisements onto the computer monitors -- the strings that came attached to the deal initially rolled out last February. The company said it would destroy the credit card information that it took as part of a marketing campaign designed to collect information from a network of consumers that it could then sell to advertisers. The company, started by business incubator ideaLab, is also shutting down on Feb. 14 the free local dial-up Internet services it bundled with the Compaq and Dell computers it sold. Free-PC.com, Irvine, Calif., merged with eMachines, a Pasadena, Calif.-based computer manufacturer, in November. The company will continue to develop the software that it mounted on the free machines.