So just how many eOnes do you suppose eMachines has in stock, anyway? We all know that Sotec, the Japanese manufacturer of that particular iMac copycat, was barred from making or exporting any more of them, at least in the translucent blue and white casing. Yet eOnes are still on the shelves in Circuit City and Micro Center stores, at the very least. Does eMachines have a few million of them tucked away, somewhere? If so, it may not be long before huge flocks of eOnes start winging their way into U.S. homes-- for free. (Sorta.)

See, according to a MacCentral article, eMachines has just merged with Free PC Inc., those guys who "give away" Wintel systems to people willing to sign up for a few years' worth of Internet service. Which means that eMachines, the PC rookie who shot right into the big leagues in terms of retail sales, will soon have another distribution channel through which it can infect the world with cheap, ugly systems. Apple's closest similar marketing push involves a rebate for iMac customers willing to sign up for a long-term Compuserve contract, but that offer hasn't exactly been trumpeted from the rooftops. And the only company offering "free" iMacs is FreeMac.com.

But FreeMac.com doesn't seem any closer to giving away their million iMacs. In fact, they haven't even started yet, despite their anticipated launch date of a couple of months ago-- their web site still just says "very soon" (with a "late 1999/early 2000" note in the fine print) and has a sign-up form by which eager and interested parties can request to be notified the night before the real sign-up goes live. Forgive us if we're a little suspicious, here, but there are several factors that make us a bit leery. There's the lateness of the launch. There's the collection of name and address data along with email address for the notification sign-up-- why would they need that just to send email? And then there's the lack of any sort of privacy policy on the sign-up page. Now, we're not accusing FreeMac of anything, but our distrustful side can't think of any better way to collect lucrative Mac-targeted spam and junk-mail lists than by offering to give away free iMacs. (Could that have been the business plan all along?) Conspiracy theories aside, Apple's going to have a tough battle to fight in the low-cost consumer space against the likes of eMachines and Free PC.