[mcherm]

Yes, but the correct thing to do in this situation is to pay the $5,000 for the Hello World program, NOT post it (you never promised to publicize the results), and tell your boss "mea culpa... I tried the programming contest thing and it didn't work out". It wouldn't be the first time that a marketing program spent $5,000 to produce essentially no results... marketing is a very hit-and-miss business at the best of times, so your boss may be annoyed, but should take it in stride.

What you DON'T do is to advertise that you're offering a contest, then fail to pay out the prizes. That's not just sleazy, it's illegal.

[xiaoma]

>Yes, but the correct thing to do in this situation is to pay the $5,000 for the Hello World program, NOT post it (you never promised to publicize the results)

Just to play the devil's advocate, what's stopping unscrupulous companies from canceling the prize and saying they did the above?

They say, "I'm sorry, you weren't the winner" to any contestant who asked, and without a public announcement of who the winner was, they could get away without paying the prize money to anyone.

[jerf]

I couldn't google up any examples, but if you read the fine print of contests given by large organizations, the fine print always includes a clause to the effect of "If you'd like to know the full list of winners of this contest, send a self-addressed stamped envelope to $ADDRESS and you'll receive it by XXX date." I would imagine that clause is to block exactly this attack.

Contest law is fairly well-hammered out, and surprisingly subtle; a few months back HN had a story about the legal dangers of doing a contest like this. If this story is accurate, it seems very likely GamePro is in violation of the law, if they are a US company. I don't know for sure as I am neither lawyer nor totally aware of the contest in question, but it's very easy to be in violation of these laws.

[prakash]

jerf, is there an email id via which I can get in touch with you? Or you can send me an email? thanks!