It might be the journalist in me, but I prefer to protect the 'profiles' of my sources/contacts, my friends, my family. I accidentally spammed my own gmail list when signing up for one of these things (once) and it totally freaked me and many of my associates out. Since then I have tried to be very careful when joining these.
My 'trust' threshold is, I fear, very prohibitive due to years of covering government entities I've discovered to be untrustworthy or just plain stupid -- not to mention telephone companies who are quite willing to violate my constitutional rights.
And, well, there's stalking, cyber-stalking, identity theft and all the evils yet undreamed.
The Web offers marvelous opportunities, but its dark side is very dark indeed. I try to be mindful of that.
Creepy
It might be the journalist in me, but I prefer to protect the 'profiles' of my sources/contacts, my friends, my family. I accidentally spammed my own gmail list when signing up for one of these things (once) and it totally freaked me and many of my associates out. Since then I have tried to be very careful when joining these.
My 'trust' threshold is, I fear, very prohibitive due to years of covering government entities I've discovered to be untrustworthy or just plain stupid -- not to mention telephone companies who are quite willing to violate my constitutional rights.
And, well, there's stalking, cyber-stalking, identity theft and all the evils yet undreamed.
The Web offers marvelous opportunities, but its dark side is very dark indeed. I try to be mindful of that.