The joys of de-branding my phone

At Starbucks, if you have a Starbucks gift card you can sign up to get some free wifi access.  However, to activate your account, you have to click a link in an email, but that can’t be done until you are logged into the wifi and surfing the net.  This is perplexing, but easy to get around when you have an de-branded phone that can tether even when you really shouldn’t because you’re not paying for the plan to do so.