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Online, has anyone noticed?

M

Mia

Well-Known Member
V.I.P Member
That many sites want you to join all the time? More and more they attempt to make it integral to your visiting a site. They want your information, email addresses, phone numbers, where you live. Have been a member of several sites for years that want my cell number and every time I log in, they request it, apparently my email address is insufficent, although there's always a provision to not give a cell number.

The other day I answered a tech question on a site, and the site has been sending emails each day to get me to join. It's annoying. Has anyone found this constant request for information and filling out forms too invasive? Often if I go to a site and might want to purchase something on occasion, they have questions to fill out like age, sex, cell number. Before I even buy anything, that have nothing to do with the purchase. I won't bother buying anything from that particular site for those reasons.
 
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I've noticed this, too. Yes, it's too invasive. They have no business knowing my mobile phone number, or other such personal information. It's all about profiling and targeting you for advertising.
 
Good point. I think it's all rather central to how revenue gathering is conducted in the 21st century. Where more conventional methods are being abandoned in favor of the monetization of users themselves for marketing purposes. A point made acutely critical as a result of the recent Facebook scandal.

Where your harvested email address and other vital statistics are potentially more valuable than the cost and sale of software development. Sad.

I liked the previous era of buying and using software and/or related services without so many caveats relating to marketing and the loss of my privacy. Perhaps the worst of this is in noticing what you give up just to download alleged "freeware" of older yet notable software, which often comes with some nasty and invasive adware/malware.
 
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Right now I just tried to start firefox and this bright red pop-up appeared with no close button, forcing you to respond, highly irritating.
 
Progster said:
Right now I just tried to start firefox and this bright red pop-up appeared with no close button, forcing you to respond, highly irritating.
Click to expand...

Was that the "Save Net Neutrality" ad? I got that on my phone and on this website on Chrome. Annoying, to be sure.
 
Good observation Mia :)

Another annoying thing about this is all the pages of captcha's where you have to click on street signs or store fronts in very small grainy looking photos. Just to access the site. And even if you get them all correct sometimes it blocks you out anyways. Lol

The membership required is also a huge hassle but i just completely reject those sites knowing that the same information or utility will be available on hundreds of others.

There are some sites now that also try to force you out if you use an adblocker, vpn, or browser fingerprint blocker. But by doing this they lose their audience and in turn ranking. Since the exact same content can be found elsewhere without forced ads or forced data mining.

Anyway when it comes to over reaches with data just put in fake information. Something like this can be handy: Get a whole new identity at the Fake Name Generator

fake phone numbers will work too but sometimes you need to find a validator for their code to accept it.
 
I refuse to use sites that ask for too much. I figure that they're probably not gathering that information purely for my benefit; sure, there may be a security component, but if that was all the same thing could be accomplished without personal information.

I'm not giving a site my cell number so my phone can vibrate like a bumble ball all day with spam texts. Monetize the fattest part of my ass.
 
Hdphn33 said:
Another annoying thing about this is all the pages of captcha's where you have to click on street signs or store fronts in very small grainy looking photos. Just to access the site. And even if you get them all correct sometimes it blocks you out anyways. Lol
Click to expand...

Very true. But then quite often that's how a host attempts to keep the spambots from signing up.

Nevertheless maddening at times when you get them right and they still treat you like an invader.

Yet another form of Catch-22. :eek:
 
Infuriating adds are one of the reasons I'm a user of Adblock, turning it off only on a few chosen sites that do not intrude on my boundaries. Although even more frustrating are websites with pop-ups that force you to either register or leave the site. Got some great misunderstandings with websites like Pinterest due to this for example. Overall, everything in the Internet seems to turn more and more invasive with every passing year.
 
Now would probably be an Ok time to mention, as I logged onto here just now, a red "Net Neutrality" page flashed up, fortunately I was able to clear it and come on here as normal.

Just thought I'd best mention it is all.
 
Scary to know that somewhere, somehow all this data is being harvested and catalogued to the benefit of someone who likely has the worst of intentions.

It's getting harder and harder to remain on the defense and tread carefully, more so with the carrot on a stick tempting the average internet user. Tit for tat, right? Yeah, there's something behind that curtain, and you can have it...for a price ;)
 
One of the things I use when I want to see a site that requires email is a ten or twenty minute temporary email, you copy and use the generated email. The site checks it and you wait for the automatic response at that site, open it and reply. Then the email address is apparently erased. Also have a free garbage email account as well, where these sites sends things.

10 Minute Mail - Temporary E-Mail

MinuteInbox | 10 Minute Mail Address
 
WildCat said:
Scary to know that somewhere, somehow all this data is being harvested and catalogued to the benefit of someone who likely has the worst of intentions.

It's getting harder and harder to remain on the defense and tread carefully, more so with the carrot on a stick tempting the average internet user. Tit for tat, right? Yeah, there's something behind that curtain, and you can have it...for a price ;)
Click to expand...

In the UK, as far as I know the new data protection laws came in last week.

I don't know all the details, they'll be on Google, but we're supposed to have more protection now.
 
Judge said:
Very true. But then quite often that's how a host attempts to keep the spambots from signing up.

Nevertheless maddening at times when you get them right and they still treat you like an invader.

Yet another form of Catch-22. :eek:
Click to expand...

In before blood tests via USB device
 
Mia said:
One of the things I use when I want to see a site that requires email is a ten or twenty minute temporary email, you copy and use the generated email. The site checks it and you wait for the automatic response at that site, open it and reply. Then the email address is apparently erased. Also have a free garbage email account as well, where these sites sends things.

10 Minute Mail - Temporary E-Mail

MinuteInbox | 10 Minute Mail Address
Click to expand...

This right here. If people would take extra measures to safeguard their personal information, they could avoid complications and head-scratching down the road when someone decides to exploit them for personal gain.

Started using temporary e-mail the moment I heard of it as I'm now getting into the habit of treating my e-mail address like a credit card number. I can't stress enough just how useful this is.
 
Have noticed when I was looking for a friends cell phone number on the net, that all the sites that list them charge a fee to find the number for you. So, sites that ask for cell phone numbers likely provide these pay sites with the numbers, something you gave them for free.
 
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