The Daily Populous Friday May 10th, 2024 evening edition
Authored by bbc.co.uk and submitted by diacewrb

A free bottle of wine has finally been claimed after being hidden in the privacy policy of a tax-focused think tank's website for three months.

Tax Policy Associates added the clause in February as an experiment, to see if anyone would actually read the full terms.

The non-profit organisation's head Dan Neidle shared the story in a tweet on X, external, formerly Twitter, saying the first person to spot it would get sent a "bottle of good wine".

Mr Neidle - who has previously reported on high-profile tax cases, including that of former Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi - told the BBC it was his idea to add the wine offer.

The business has recently changed the small print on its site, external after the eagle-eyed discovery.

"We know nobody reads this, because we added in February that we’d send a bottle of good wine to the first person to contact us, and it was only in May that we got a response," a sentence in their privacy policy now reads.

Mr Neidle said it was "my childish protest that all businesses have to have a privacy policy and no one reads it".

"Every tiny coffee shop has to have a privacy policy on their website, it’s crazy. It’s money that’s being wasted."

diacewrb on May 10th, 2024 at 09:33 UTC »

It was part of protest and experiment to see if anyone actually read the privacy policy on the website, the guy was inspired by the band Van Halen.

> Mr Neidle said his approach was inspired by one used by the band Van Halen, who would ask for a bowl of M&Ms with all the brown ones removed as part of their tour rider.

> It was not because they were picky eaters though, they included it as a test to make sure promoters were paying attention to their requests, which often included complicated technical instructions.

> “It was a brilliant strategy to see if people were paying attention," Mr Neidle said.