Quote:
Originally Posted by TheNorm
So how do you know who they are, until its too late?
And how do you know when a website changes its mind and starts selling the information?
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Every website you visit has information eg your IP and that is available to the webmaster or anyone entrusted to access the information. For most people that information is irrelevant as the ISP is the privacy guardian between a fairly meaningless number and a name and address.
If you give additional information in conducting business with a website then if it's commercial there is trust which if breached not only becomes a violation of the data protection act but is likely to see that commercial enterprise heading for a bankruptcy court.
If the site is a leisure or interest site such as this one then the trust for the information given is placed in the hands of the owner\s and any that have the rights to look. Of course sites such as these have a responsibility not to allow that information to leak out and as such you can reasonably expect that anonymous "TheNorm" will be all anybody would ever know about you. The choice is available for everybody to use aliases or if you wished you could use your full name, address, e-mail address and telephone number. I would definitely not advise that you do.
Privacy from those that wish to peddle you something is something that I wish to retain. I had to use full names in forums I frequented back in the 90's and eventually dumped that ISP when spam filters failed through log sizes. Tens of thousands of mail spam mail address's were harvested by the easy link with names & ISP. I was inundated for years with spam.
IMO if something on the web can be exploited for gain it will be. If people can be naively duped they will be and I put my trust in those who by my payment have a duty of care. That trust is currently being tested.