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Ask Slashdot: Can Creating New Online Accounts Reduce Privacy Risks?

Posted by timothy on from the that-sounds-like-a-forlorn-hope dept.

rjnagle writes "I'm concerned about the implications of storing personal data on Gmail, Facebook, and other social media sites. I'm less worried about individual data than the accumulating mass of data which potentially be used against me (for targeted marketing, credit reporting and who knows what else?) One solution I'm considering is just to abandon individual accounts and start clean and new gmail/facebook accounts. So while Google/Doubleclick might possess lots of data about me from 2001-2012, from this point on, they only have a clean slate. Would this kind of solution address my privacy concerns? (assuming I remove cookies, change IP address before doing so etc). Or are an individual's profile by now so unique that simply creating a new gmail or Facebook account would fail to prevent these data collection agencies from figuring out who I am? Insights and tips are appreciated."

5 of 164 comments (clear)

  1. I have enough accounts.... by ackthpt · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I need people to just let me get things done as Guest.

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    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  2. Reverse honeypots by Solandri · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I've always maintained that passing laws to protect our privacy is a losing battle. If you make a law to make someone stop doing something they want to do, all that usually ends up happening is they figure out a way to do the exact same thing while skirting around the law.

    Instead, we should pollute their data. Create programs which can run when you're not using your computer, which look like multiple browsers and access websites in a random but quasi-human-like fashion. They'll amass tracking cookies, but the cookies will be tracking bots rather than real people. Decrease their signal to noise ratio so much that it's no longer cost-effective to collect people's private data, at least from monitoring people's browsing habits.

  3. Re:Note that it's against the rules by schneidafunk · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I tried signing up for a new youtube account today and was REQUIRED to give them my phone number in order for them to send me a text message to 'verify my account'. I was unable to upload a video without doing so. I ended up signing up to vimeo instead.

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    Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
  4. Re:That's cute, kid. by UnknowingFool · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So my company wanted me to either create a FB account or link to my existing FB account for some social media activity. I created a new FB account with just my name and the barest of details. Within a week, FB was suggesting friends from old account.

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    Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
  5. Not going to work by gr8_phk · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It has been observed that some very basic data can uniquely identify people in the US. IIRC this can be as simple as: Your zipcode, gender, and birthdate. Never mind your browser, IP, list of contacts, common words you use. Just those 3 things are enough to uniquely identify most people.