> This is broadly impractical for the average citizen.

No it's not. Sign up for a virtual mailbox for $15-$25/month.

> A scalable solution would be to make this sort of thing illegal.

I'm posting this in the genuine interest of people being able to maintain anonymity from data leaks, privacy leaks, and in general not needing to tell businesses more personal information than is necessary to render services. This is in a country that has no protection of personal safety whatsoever, and any business data leak could mean life or death to average citizens who are being threatened by criminals, stalkers, and more.

It seems every time I post something of this flavor the same handful of you come out of the woods and want to make privacy illegal, and I'm not sure who you are trying to support.

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ygjb 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> No it's not. Sign up for a virtual mailbox for $15-$25/month.

Did you notice that it's an affordability crisis out there? An absolutely enormous number of people are skipping bills, taking on credit, and using predatory lenders to make end meets, and your recommendation is to add another fee on top of things.

It's not practical or useful guidance for the vast majority of people. I strongly agree with supporting privacy, but this sort of behaviour (adding trackers, etc) to normal functions without a full disclosure and opt-out mechanism must be made illegal, otherwise we are just creating markets for "privacy preserving" technologies that are increasingly less likely to actually be effective for that purpose but sure do put on a good theatre of seeming that way.

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AbsurdCensor 2 hours ago | parent [-]

At least in the US it's not even a good method either. Own a house? Boom, your information is publically available and you won't be able to remove it without a court order, which in most states is impossible to get. In most states, you don't even need to own a house, decide to vote? You information again is publically available. Tie your real name to a single account to purchase something, and you are trackable. Want privacy? You'd need to remove yourself from the internet, dump your phone, destroy your ID and work underground for cash. We can push against iot, and people have been forever, but at the end of the day the government will always they have a vested interest in being able to identify it's citizens.

	▲	qurren 10 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		[dead]

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autoexec an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Sign up for a virtual mailbox for $15-$25/month.

That isn't going to stop Microsoft from collecting your address by collecting your wifi info, or from the data you enter into websites or documents. When the maker of your OS is the enemy you will always lose.

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nemomarx 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think they meant make what Microsoft is doing illegal?

or make it illegal to ask for address, etc. definitely a little more effective than mailboxes

	▲	qurren 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Ahhh okay if that's what they meant, then yes, I 100% agree and apologize in advance. I fully agree that businesses should not be asking for addresses. Non-financial businesses don't need to KYC in the first place, and financial institutions can KYC without needing to know where you sleep. I got triggered because people seem to always want to come out of the woods and say "addresses should be public record" or things of that sort and I vehemently disagree in the interest of privacy, in a country where a stalker can just look you up, terrorize you, and the police will do nothing about it.

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Modified3019 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> No it's not. Sign up for a virtual mailbox for $15-$25/month.

You are out of touch.

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theideaofcoffee 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

They (the ones wanting to make privacy illegal) are just the ones that want to develop the tools and consume the data for it because it'll be good for their resume or some bullshit, or they're just intrinsically broken humans.