If you are just Joe Internet user, you probably are most familiar with the “Get A Free Ipod” sites via annoying banners, spam, and other internet noise. But if you are in the online marketing space, you know them more as the shaky beams that have oddly supported an entire industry for the past several years.

When CAN SPAM took the legs out from under legitimate email marketing (spam itself still thrives), a crap-ton of online marketing dollars went into the buying and selling of data via incentive and freebie registration paths. Companies like Webclients, Azoogle, The Useful, Adteractive, and others made a small fortune by dangling everything from grills and dolls, to ipods and gift cards in front of people - tempting them (and some would say tricking them) into signing up for all sorts of ancillary crap before leaving them high and dry with no prize, but lots of email and phone calls from hungry marketers who had bought their data.

Well….the bottom is now falling out, as the FTC is breathing down the neck of Valueclick, Aptimus is seeking refuge by selling their “technology”, and TheUseful is just plain on the run.

It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out. I for one, hope that these promos go the way of the dinosaur and fast, as removing this nonsense only helps to strengthen the good and legitimate lead generation marketers our there. But a big part of me is expecting it to play out much like CAN SPAM did, where new rules serve to only hurt those that followed the rules to begin with, while the slippery companies find clever ways around them and go on their merry way.