Ac correctly mentioned, the portal shares the money made through searches/clicks etc with the members. Noble ideas, but suspect ethics.

Fairness is something that the site does not pride itself for, quite strange for a website in today’s scenario. They have recently decided that the manner of payouts should be different for different localities: Members from US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland and Spain get $25 for 6.5K points while people from the “non-preferred” regions like Asia need to work 38 times harder – for them 250,000 points are worth $25. I had posted a comment protesting the same, but the administrators apparently decided that they don’t need to publish truth if it is inconvenient. Hence posting the same here also to provide visibility for the website policies:

== Start Comment =
Rahul Raj // September 5, 2008 at 7:33 am

I had an invite from a close friend sitting in my inbox for about a month. Today when I decided to follow the link to Scour.com, it looked like a great website. The idea made so much sense that I invited around 75 of my friends, not realizing that a fine print has been added on the top right.

To say that the stand taken is DISAPPOINTING is trying to put it verrry mildly. A comparison of 6,500 points = $25 and 250,000 points = $25 is a ratio of around 1:40. All animals are equal but some animals are 40 times more equal than others???

Obviously, I would not be making use of scour anymore, and now I am left with the onerous task of mailing all the people that I had invited to desist from using the site as it is grossly unfair and that is reason enough to steer clear of the portal.

At the same time, the fairness, or the lack of it is subjective, as will be contested by the “Haves” and the “Have-nots” – refer above where we have people trying to justify “unfairness” as the price of belonging to the same group. The person must have come from a community where the entire family is jailed when the youngest child breaks the neighbour’s window pane; but then people are entitled to their opinions, even if they are as reprehensible as justifying group level action when the system is not competent enough to differentiate.

At the same time, Scour.com is free to make any rules, reprehensible or not and it is the duty of the people signing up to ensure that they read he rules and agree to it. Since I do find unfairness patently disagreeable, I admit my mistake in signing up, and will identify mechanisms to close the account. Also, will ensure that the changes in the rules and the ramifications gain the visibility that they deserve to ensure that people in the “Other Regions” have enough warning so thta they do not feel cheated once they are on board.

Signing off,
TaDa.

Your comment is awaiting moderation. (This last line was put when I had submitted the comment – It never made the light of the day! Thankfully, I had saved a copy of the page.)
== End Comment