Welcome to Legally India’s first ever premium-subscribers-only newsletter and also a massive thank you for being one of that special breed of human being who will support journalism online. We are truly blessed to have you as our reader and supporter.
Anyway, I have big plans on making this a very special, very personal and very fun read for you every week, and I hope that you will also let me know what you enjoy reading about (and definitely what you do not enjoy so much too).
This week, I wanted to mix it up a bit, with two unpublished small scoops in the ongoing CAM and AZB exchange, something about what Shardul Amarchand is up to down South, rumours of a truly massive exodus that could be both true and false at the same time right now, like the cat of Schrödinger, a fun titbit from Trilegal, and a little bit of CAM-related strange.
And finally, we also have a potentially truly gamechanging piece of news lined up about the Bar Council of India.
And… I’m afraid that to read more you’ll have to sign up. The good news is, if you sign up now we’ll send you the last newsletter with all this gossip and more. Give it a go – there’s a money back guarantee if you don’t like it.
Click here to read more about our new subscription model on Legally India’s seventh birthday.
Photo by Prayitno
Comments
I can't afford no newsletter. :|
Had hoped Rs 200 per month would also work within student budgets - maybe think about it as Rs 7 per day if that feels better? :) Or, if you subscribe for a year, it's only Rs 5.5 per day with discount.
The other option is to win our letter writing competition:
http://www.legallyindia.com/bar-bench-litigation/manan-kumar-mishra-comments-on-air-contract-and-it-s-a-wonderful-rant
If there's demand we'll have more competitions in future for free subs.
An unsolicited suggestion: Probably, you could offer discounted rates to students, with ".edu" or ".ac.in" email address.
Just so you know, not so long ago, when I was a student, 200 rupees used to be a big amount. In fact, several times, at end of the month, it was the aggregate amount available with my entire group :). But it was enough for little joys of life!
Please also bear in mind that many lawyers still retain ".edu" or ".ac.in" email address, even though they have graduated and may try to subscribe for cheap! So may need another level of verification for students.
Certainly, will add unmoderated subscriber commenting to our product development roadmap (I've always wanted to say 'product development roadmap', feels kinda fun :).
Will check how subscriber commenting and everything else catches on in the first few days / weeks and will then begin adding more features as requested. Maybe we can do a subscriber only poll and see what's most requested?
The lower price from edu and ac.in domains may be hard to implement in practice - not every student may even have an edu or ac.in domain, right? Also, what do you think would be a reasonable discounted price every student could afford? One alternative approach could also be to give away subscriptions as prizes in competitions only open for students, maybe?
Also expect students to widely share the subscription email amongst themselves! So it's a tricky question!! So probably,
Seperately, in absence of password, how does the subscription work? Do you leave a small "cookie" on our devices? What does the "cookie" track. Probably a little clarity would be helpful to avoid any scepticism.
More than happy to explain the tech, glad someone asked, I care perhaps a bit too much about privacy! :) If you're not very technically inclined or interested, you might not want to read the following due to risk of death by boredom.
1. First off, when you subscribe, I do see your name and email address (since we get a successful payment alert from the payment gateway).
However, as far as I can see, there is not currently (nor will there ever be) any way for me to link that to your activity on the site, particularly since there are now enough subscribers for there to be good anonymity in numbers.
We also track to a limited extent if a subscription is being used on lots of different devices. If a suscription gets shared too widely, we may reset the code or kindly request a subscriber to please not share their code.
The newsletter, as most newsletter software, also tracks whether it's been opened by a subscriber, I think.
Now for the really technical stuff.
2. A small cookie and a Javascript localstorage piece of data is left on your device. It is a unique but completely random code (aka, a 'hash'), that does not disclose anything about your identity to anyone using your computer, etc.
3. That code is also stored on our server, which can then check whether your subscription is valid / expired, whether you're subscribed to the newsletter, etc, and then activate the website perks for you.
4. When you post a comment, your code is not stored in our database at all (however, your IP address currently is, but we have not (and will not) create any capability to cross-link your IP address to your unique code).
We also don't cross-link page-views and your code. And while any risk of police or courts seeking your IP address from us is mostly academic, if there is demand, I also have plans to find a way to disable IP address storage for subscribers (currently the IP address is required by our commenting system to prevent voting up your own post, to prevent spam, etc.)
5. I believe that our visitor analytics software, as all common analytics software, does track individuals' use of the site by their IP address (i.e., how long they stay, what pages they visit, etc). However, as far as I know, it does not capture whether a visitor leaves a comment or other things like that, nor does it link it to your unique code or anything else.
(FYI, we use Google Analytics and Piwik right now, but will hopefully close down Google Analytics soon for additional privacy from the big G. We have already removed all Facebook and Twitter tracking code from our site, and are working on being completely Google free too).
6. Finally, I should also note that ultimately it has to come down to whether you trust LI or not. In theory, any website can track you to a scary and ridiculous degree, and if a police forces a website to give up their logs and your IP address, there is a lot they could extrapolate from that.
Also, yes, in theory, technologically, it would be possible for LI to also more easily link subscribers' real identity to comments you leave.
BUT, I very consciously and intentionally went out of my way to ensure that the system was designed as far as possible that this would not and will not happen, because I personally think anonymity is valuable and I have no interest in being burdened with the knowledge of who has left which comment.
Anyway, sorry for the long explanation, but I hope it answers your questions...
Since it looks like you're signed in already, I have made the following link for you - it should send you another copy of the newsletter:
http://www.legallyindia.com/index.php?option=com_lisubs&view=thanks&resend=1
If it doesn't work, can you please respond to my comment with your name or email (I won't publish your comment), email me at the usual address, and I will investigate or come up with some other option to get it across to you.
Alternatively, if you want to retain anonymity, let me know and I will find some other way to make it accessible via the website.
Thanks for your patience.
I think it should be corrected now and you should have the newsletter and welcome email. Please don't hesitate to let me know if it's not there.
Thanks
Kian
It has caused problems for us too. (Hint: please ask them for a report of 'failed transactions).
Do try having your own payment gateway.
If it doesn't work still, please send me an email to kian dot ganz @ this website and I'll get you set up.
Filmfare for lawyers!
Stardust for lawyers!
Take your pick!
And clearly you need names of certain firms to sell this...
Mixed feelings!!
In short, yes, the newsletter is unashamedly gossip and massala-packed. But it's also full of analysis and context to law firm news stories.
We also stick to our usual journalistic principles: while we don't make anything up, we also don't name names were something is really sensitive. Also, we only include rumours that have a high threshold of credibility and that we've stood up as having at least some basis in reality, rather than being completely spurious. Or we might use it to debunk rumours that have been doing the rounds like wildfire, and provide some context.
It's a work in progress, but the idea with the newsletter was to find some content that is different from what's available on the web, and is obviously opt-in only.
wanted to subscribe for the 12 month subscription but ur payment gateway does not take amex though the instamojo page shows amex as an option
Thanks
Kian