Free Resources- that are NOT free!

So I get an e-mail claiming to be for a free it-related resource from a software vendor. Click on the link, and I need to fill in full company details, including full address, phone number, country, size, etc.- all mandatory entries- in order to access the resource?
If you then look closely at the bottom of the page, in a tiny font, you CAN access “without registering”, but in order to take the payment, they will naturally require pretty much the same information.

A link to a second resource on the same site a few minutes later, from the same company, requires me to fill everything in again in order to get the second resource.

If you already have access to my details, via whatever source, why do I need to fill in this stuff (and more) again? Either accept what you have at face value, or fix your site so that it uses the cookies it plants to see that I’m the same person accessing the site again. And having everything as mandatory is overkill.

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If it claims to be free but actually isn’t, that should raise a whole set of red flags.

Depending on which country both you and the vendor are located in, there could be a number of offences being committed here in terms of misrepresentation and false advertising claims, depending on local laws and how they can be enforced.

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True, and if I really wanted to take the time, I probably would report them.