babylon: charging you $6.99 for retrieving your lost lincense ?!?

[urlwolf]

I bought babylon long time ago when I was learning English, and forgot about it till recently. Since now I'm studying another language again, I could benefit from Babylon again. Since the newer versions don't add any live-or-death functionality, I'll stick to my old version.... but I forgot my license details.

Watch their emai!

I find that service borderline insulting.
We all know that maintaining a db with all keys from all users do not cost Babylon 6.99 USD.
In fact, the cost is negligible, considering that 99.99% companies in the world do this for free.

This is a dirty trick, and the world should know.
Now, I cannot use my purchased software. Great.

> Dear urlwolf!
> Thank you for taking the time to write to us.
>
> How to retrieve your license
>Restoring your license and setup file will cost a one-time fee of 6.99 
> USD.
>This  fee is for a service provided to our licensed users  who wish  to 
> keep their license in our record and provide it to them upon request 
> with no further fee.
> This is  much like a lifetime insurance - Babylon will provide you your 
> code no matter how much times you will request for it or ,  how many 
> times your computer will be formatted and the registration details will 
> lost.
>
> To purchase - use this link:   
> LINK
>After you have purchased ELS you may contact me in order to shorten the 
> process and I will be happy to resend your licnese details.
>
> Thank you for taking the time writing to us.
>
> If I can be of further assistance, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
>Kind Regards,

[Darwin]

Fargin' bastiches. I've never come across that one before, I admire its creatvity but from a consumer's perspective, that's pretty low. Thanks for the warning!

[mouser]

That's very messed up. 

[masu]

I don't like their license structure either.

E.g.
they charge for the same amount in € as in us $, although the € is much more valuable as the dollar at the moment

[sri]

Speaking about the product itself, can it translate a group of words (i.e., a selection of sentence or sentences)? If it doesn't, is there any alternative (freeware preferred) for German->English?

[masu]

yes, but just with the help of external online translation services

[tomos]

Speaking about the product itself, can it translate a group of words (i.e., a selection of sentence or sentences)? If it doesn't, is there any alternative (freeware preferred) for German->English?

dont know would this help :
http://german.about.com/library/bltransltxt.htm
or
more generally:
http://www.google.de/search?q=German+english+translation+software&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

I use Leo but that's just a dictionary -
If you need some post-translation-proofreading/checking & if it's not too much stuff let me know I might be able to help.
But if it's technical forget it 

[steeladept]

I don't like this, but it is hardly the first time I have heard of it.  In fact, I know many, mostly smaller, outfits who do this except they charge a small fee EVERY TIME you request it.  The theory goes that they emailed you a key and since you were using it you had it at least one time.  For them to regenerate it takes time to lookup and verify your purchase - time they could spend developing.  If you can't keep your email yourself, then that is taking away from the developer - again, as the theory goes.  I know that MANY outfits don't even keep a database at all.  They either use a consistent algorithm to generate a key, or generate a new key to replace lost ones.  All these methods have ups & downs, but in the end it is going to cost someone something, and more and more developers are deciding it isn't going to cost them anymore.  Unfortunate but true in situations like yours, or even mine where I moved and lost my emails.  That is why I use Yahoo's online email service now.