AFAIK some Chinese companies take the firmware download as a chance to slurp up as much user information as possible for their marketing department. Geez.
Its spreading across all countries/industries/companies
Nvidia are pushing down this road:
https://www.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/5u1m7u/nvidia_want_to_update_drivers_have_to_login/
Its becoming routine for companies to refuse to serve you unless they have your email address, phone number, postal address, etc even when none of those are required to deliver the service. The advertising networks they work with need the data to keep linking their profiles of you across as many platforms as possible.
It's corporate bullshit that's what it is!
I just typed in a load of garbage, including bad serial number, and it still worked.
This is my default action for these things. It often surprises people when I don't automatically type in all my personal details when I see a form on a web page.
If somebody insists on emailing a download link to me (which Rigol doesn't) they'll get a mailinator address.
If they're checking for mailinator addresses then they get a special email address with their company name in it that'll be set to "bounce" mode right after I use the link. Mailinator is a useful filter, anybody checks for mailinator addresses in their web page is a
guaranteed asshole who should never be given a real email address.