The Park Record’s site metering is an ugly distraction… but there is a work-around

As of Wednesday, the Park Record instituted “Site Metering.” This means that you can only look at three articles per month before the Park Record blocks you (unless you provide your email address to them). Frankly, if we were an advertiser, we would be upset. But we suppose that’s their business.

That said, forcing users to provide an email for access doesn’t seem like a customer focused solution. The Park Record says, “The data will be used internally only — we will not sell it. It will be used for newsletters, email blasts and more from us.” It seems like a drastic move for something that would seem to provide little value. Perhaps there is great value to them in the “and more from us” part of their statement.

We’ve always looked at the Park Record as a Faustian Bargain. Are we willing to wade through all the ads disguised as articles to get the few pieces of information that are valuable? Lately we’ve further questioned that in the reporting regarding school start times. The Park Record ran a story that led many community members to think elementary school was starting at 9:20AM. This them caused an uproar from the community, which caused the Park City School Board to have to issue a statement saying that start times were not changing. It was a mess… mainly caused by the Park Record.

So, this brings us back to site metering. Again, the Park Record is making people register in order to look at more than three records per month. We’ve visited with a few folks about the change who have said “good riddance.” We’re not at that point. We believe The Park Record can provide value to the community; however, we still don’t like the concept of site metering. We’ve subscribed to the electronic edition of the Park Record in the past but that always came with a paper copy of the Salt Lake Tribune. We hated the idea of killing trees — that’s why we wanted the electronic edition. So, we cancelled our subscription. We have no problem paying for news but we’d prefer to exchange money for a service and not blindly sign up for this.

We assume that they’ll eventually turn it off, but for now there is a work-around. When the web page comes up simply click the “stop loading button” in the browser right after you see the article text appear (before the popup appears). In Chrome, that is the X that appears next to the URL box.

This also works on an iPhone. Simply click the X in the url box right after the article text appears.

There are also more technical work-arounds but this is a fairly simple solution.

We’ve reviewed the Terms of Use for ParkRecord.com (which are from 2012) and we don’t believe this is contemplated in them. That said, you should review the Terms yourself and come to your own conclusion (if you are going use this method).

Likewise, perhaps you don’t mind giving up your email address to the Park Record for their internal uses (whatever that may end up being). Power to you.