To market its BuyPower.com auto-shopping site, GM chose to ally with AOL--but also with free-service provider NetZero.

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But NetZero refuses to use partners to sell its service, offering its service only under the NetZero name.

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In the spirit of its roots, NetZero even has a free plan that caps bandwidth at 200 MB of data per month.

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The company that made free access seem practical was NetZero, whose nearly 2 million registered users put it in the top tier of ISPs.

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The virtual ISP model of Spinway and 1stUp looks a lot more compelling over the long run than the model of NetZero, currently the biggest free ISP.

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Rather than sell service to marketers as a customer giveaway, NetZero peddles its own brand, aiming to offset the cost by selling advertising and targeted marketing research.

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"We don't consider ourselves a competitor with NetZero, but with the distribution we get from AltaVista and Excite, it shouldn't be too hard to break through their numbers, " says Katz.

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"When you have a company that subsidizes each sale with its own cash and the company has significant competition from eMachines and NetZero, enormous losses and little prospect for near-term or intermediate-term profitability, no one should be surprised that the offering didnt do well, " says Charles.

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