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Is there any real drawback to just never giving your real name or address to service providers to minimise the chance of identity theft? Most likely it’s against terms of service, but other than account suspension are you likely to suffer any legal consequences?


Anonimity on the Internet is going out of vogue.

The only way to fix the ToS issue you raised is through regulation protecting it.

Unfortunately we're going the other direction, with efforts like verified ID gaining traction in some parts of the world.

It's ironic because in most cases anonymity (or allowing an alternate identity that has its own built-up reputation) would offer real protection, while the verification systems are arguably security theatre.

I don't care what technical genius is built into your architecture, as soon as you force a user to plug their ID information into it, they've forked over control along with any agency to protect their own safety.


The ad tech companies can associate any fake identity with your real identity. So no, there is no problem. Good thing that all ad tech companies are fully on the up-and-up and have never been compromised to spread malware.


Service providers generally use your name and address to validate your billing method.

If you can pay by some method that doesn’t require name or address then go ahead and use a fake name.


Depending on the service, the billing data may be in its own database outside of the user tables.


I mean, for some services, likes banks / credit cards, it's required..

For others, I try to stay anonymous / aliased where possible.




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