How free are you with your personal information?

[Lieju]

I'd rather not give my phone number to anyone.
I have two e-mail addresses, one with my real name that's used for serious business, and other I give to people when I don't necessarily want them to know my real name. Incidentally, the serious one gets more spam.

There are sites where you can get my address if you sell or buy from me (hobby-stuff) and I have gotten some weird messages which have sounded like they were from 10-year olds trying to chat up women for the first time. Which was awkward.

But nothing bad enough for me not to use it.

Although for that reason I haven't mentioned I'm female on all sites.
There was one where I was pretending to be a guy on purpose because it was pretty homophobic place too and I just wanted to be able to talk about how hot some female characters were.

But I stopped going to those sites.

 

[Guffe]

I am a very careful person. I can give my first name to a person, last name... depending on situation, second name? I'm gonna want to know you a little better mate!
So for personal info like e-mails and stuff... in todays world with all the Facebooks and stuff I have got a little free-er, still depending on situations though.
But start going into stuff like birthdays and social signatures? No way hosé!

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

I put a lot of information online because I know that anyone with a little dedication can just dig this information up on me anyway. That's why my full name and age are on my profile, and if you dug around my comment history you'd find roughly where I live, who I work for, all the game platforms and digital distributors I'm a part of, what school I go to, other websites I frequent, and whatever else.

Within reason, of course. I'm not flaunting card numbers or bank account passwords, not saying "I'll be in this and this alley at this and this time, I hope I don't get mugged because that's a good spot to get mugged," trying not to accidentally leak information of people who aren't me, and ways to contact me outside of my TheYellowCellPhone facade.

 

[Cazza]

Closed. I'll let people know which city I live in, some basic interesting, maybe my field of work and age. That's about it. I've been gaming with some people from the internet for over 5 years and they still know little about me. When most of them have each other on facebook, exchanged mob no. etc. When they haven't meet face to face. I find that very odd.

 

[username sucks]

Hell, I never lie about where I live, since I know damn well someone will call me out on that...

Hey bro,I would never tell anyone that you really live in New Jersey. You don't need to worry about me calling you out if you claimed to live on the west coast or anything.

OP: I usually don't care who knows my personal information, although I was lying about my age for quite a bit to get past the age restrictions on... certain websites. But now I'm 18, so I no longer need to.

I try to be pretty open about who I am when I'm asked, but it's not like I go all over the Internet just to tell people about myself.

 

[Vigormortis]

I'm not overly liberal with handing out my personal info. I rarely give out my phone number unless I know or have met the person "in real life".

It's not necessarily because I'm paranoid "big brother" will come after me or some such nonsense. It's primarily because I know just how easy it is to steal someone's identity. And I've seen the woes of such an occurrence enough with friends and family to know that that's something I really don't want to deal with.

 

[DANEgerous]

I have an odd paradox, if you are what I would call "Faceless" you get nothing but say you skype me and I can see you as a person talk to me. After that I am totally free, I will likely give you my name, phone number and address with no hesitation yet even putting it into Amazon that clearly need my address so they can deliver it to my house elitists concern.

 

[Ten Foot Bunny]

I don't have any qualms about my real name (Zoë) or my picture (it's my avatar, after all). Phone number for friends. That's about it.

I have an email address that I use for sites that I voluntarily sign up for and know I can trust, including most forum registrations. When I have to give an email for something that I know I'll only use once or that I think might be a tad bit shady, I have a special email address reserved ONLY for that.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I don't mind using my name, picture or e-mail at all. Address and telephone would be another story. Credit card numbers are straight out

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

I keep my online life and personal life as seperate as possible. Those who have me on Skype get to see my last name but that's about as forthcoming as I get with my personal details when it comes to conversing with the internet. I'm Redlin5 and until I shake your hand, that's all you'll know me as.

When it comes to products and other services, I weigh the value of the purchase against how much I value my privacy before signing off my identity into their records. I don't doubt that the NSA have a file on me however. I've mentioned the NSA in quite a few conversations here and other places so clearly I'm a threat and must be monitored. -.-

 

[william12123]

I am paranoid. Not as paranoid as some folks, but I never publicly share my personal info. I use usernames, I have a number of emails (some of which are used for forums & such and dont identify me much), others which identify me (and only use for "official" purposes like banking, business & others. I have a facebook account that has 0% personal info (and is accesed with a dummy email account), for those times where you can only connect with groups through FB (which pisses me off to no end, but I have no alternative). A dedicated person could track me down I guess, but I consider myself safe-ish.

I am just PARANOID about the notion of identity theft. I know some folks fear the NSA, I fear some random asshole/troll thinking "lets fuck this person's life up by stealing all his money, selling his SIN number, and making it impossible to use his official numbers ever again because we ruined his credit rating/legal status/other". It's rare, but it's so destructive I dont want to risk it. ( I understand fear of the NSA, it just seems less likely to cause personal problems than identity theft to me)

I do tend to be more free with acquaintances, but I am still paranoid. I also regularly google myself to see what kind of info is available on me, and for the moment it's pretty minor. Linkedin is pretty annoying though. I wish it wasnt felt like an obligation but it is being pushed for more & more.

As for trading personal info for "side benefits" (like coupons) my general stance is no. 10% off might be nice, but I dont consider it worth the seemingly endless spam I already receive from previous times I gave my personal info, nor do I like the notion of companies tracking what I do. I have yet to see any evidence of it leading to better service, merely to MORE advertising. Being a person who like to feel like making a deeper analysis for most high-value products, when I see advertising I tend to get contrarian since I feel like they are "pushing" it onto me. Which has, several times, conviced me to swear off certain products.

Edit: it annoys me to no end when sites ask for my phone number. I've got email for that.