(As in vehicle registration plates, not dinner plates with names painted on them, although those would be cool.)

One of the anti-cheating requirements for my short story assignment is that it has to include a personalised plate. I’ve just been looking at the personalised plates website, and man their ‘terms of use’ are nasty. They actually say that if you link to their site without their written consent, you become liable for any damages or costs, including loss of profits, be they direct or indirect, resulting from that link (which is why I’m not linking to their site in this post!). I’m sure that’s not legal. I can’t even see how that would work. I mean, if I linked to their site and said something like “Personalised Plates shot my Grandpa”, would they actually sit down and work out how many potential customers had been turned away by that statement, and send me the bill?

(Just to be safe, in case you were considering buying a personalised plate: By reading this blog post you agree that I, Fraser Dron, have not in any way, direct or indirect, influenced your opinion towards Personalised Plates as a company, nor have I influenced your free decision as a consumer to purchase or not purchase goods and/or services from Personalised Plates).

Perhaps someone should complain to Cory Doctorow and he could lambast them on Boing Boing?

Anyway - quite aside from bogus, fear-mongering legal drivel - I’ve come to the decision that personalised registration plates (the actual plates themselves, not any company in particular) are a symbol of everything that’s wrong with society. The cheapest ones I’ve seen for sale are $600; the most expensive asking price I’ve seen is one hundred thousand dollars, for this incredible piece of irony.

Here’s one I prepared earlier: