I've never used yahoo, so I can't judge that. ChrisTX, my hotmail address is horrible. I don't get activation emails on many sites, and when someone sends me something, tells me about sending it immediately, it sometimes takes up to one hour for the email to arrive. With all my other emails, he says "sent", I click "receive" in my email client, it's there. I also had the false memory of Hotmail having no POP3/SMTP. I have tested several mailing services - all except Google send your home IP with the header. Sure, can be proxied, but it's still a valid point when I just don't like it at all.
I'm not completely against social networks. It's just that they're all shit so far. I registered at Facebook once, to make a spying account.
I checked out the account settings, realized that you have to spend like 45 minutes on privacy settings and that it's very annoying to do - a dropdown list for every single thing. No "I don't fucking want to share EVERYTHING"-button. Yea I know, it's obvious since it's their business model. Doesn't make it ok.And every time I read news about Facebook or Google CEOs, bosses or other higher ranks, they are like "yo, privacy is for pussies, privacy was yesterday, we will just dispose of it". That's when I know I'm doing the right thing not using their sites. This kind of cancerous and hostile behaviour paired with total disrespect for people should be reason enough for anyone not to entrust them with too personal data.
I keep hearing this argument: "No harm can be done with your data, you are unimportant anyway.". Depends on your definition of harm and how easily you trust random strangers. For me, the choice between "paranoid and cautious" and "foolish and oblivious" is an obvious one. If you don't want to be that radical, I say: Sure, use whatever sites and services you want, as long as you make an effort to know your surroundings. Who has access to the data you provide, what can be done with it, what could be done with it in the future, are you ok with that?
..and since I have been getting the increased feeling that at certain sites, you are not able to control what happens with your data anymore, I just don't even bother. My life has been great without throwing my identity and social connections all over the internet, I simply feel much better knowing that I have a good amount of control.
AlicanC, if you don't want to seperate your real life and online identity to some degree, it doesn't mean others who do want to do that are insecure or concerned over nothing. And if importance was aequivalent to "most people give a crap", this would be a world even more sad and pathetic than it already is.
