Funny that the author considers D+ asking for birthday and gender to be a deal breaker. I'm always flabbergasted at people whose knee-jerk reaction to forms is to just fill in truthful data. As if it's a moral issue.
I have a hypothesis (please prove me wrong): It is not amoral to default to completely fictitious information when prompted on the web.
Signing up for D+? "Jose Conseco", Gender? Female.
Buying some shoes at a random retailer? Just make it all up. EVERYTHING.
Additionally, I've discovered that when paying by credit card, even the billing details can be entirely wrong, with the exception of zip code. There is just zero reason to provide your real address (assuming you're not having something shipped) for charging to a CC.
Think about it, you're signing up for HBO Max and they ask for you name. I'm genuinely curious how many people think there's any valid reason at all to answer truthfully. Why does HBO Max need to know your real name? You're just there to watch to videos. This basically applies to close to 100% of places on the internet.
Some may consider it fraud, and the legal system might have a say in that too.
That said, I think there's a spectrum of acceptability for fictitious information that varies on the person and one requesting it. At one end is anything government or otherwise "real life" or "serious business" related, where I would not hesitate to provide real information. At the other end is accounts for various online-only entities, in which I tend to stay as far from my real identity as possible.
I have a hypothesis (please prove me wrong): It is not amoral to default to completely fictitious information when prompted on the web.
Signing up for D+? "Jose Conseco", Gender? Female.
Buying some shoes at a random retailer? Just make it all up. EVERYTHING.
Additionally, I've discovered that when paying by credit card, even the billing details can be entirely wrong, with the exception of zip code. There is just zero reason to provide your real address (assuming you're not having something shipped) for charging to a CC.
Think about it, you're signing up for HBO Max and they ask for you name. I'm genuinely curious how many people think there's any valid reason at all to answer truthfully. Why does HBO Max need to know your real name? You're just there to watch to videos. This basically applies to close to 100% of places on the internet.
Am I the only one?