Slightly off-topic, from one of the comments to the original article: > as a foreigner living in Germany you definitely see a big difference when it comes to w

Slightly off-topic, from one of the comments to the original article: > as a foreigner living in Germany you definitely see a big difference when it comes to web privacy. One thing I found surprising is that many German people will use nicknames on social sites like Facebook as to not reveal their identity online. It has more to do with common sense, doesn't it? Unless you want to promote yourself, you will probably want to use a nickname, and change these nicknames from site to site so that an individual or organization targeting you for whatever reason can't reveal your identity and do any real harm. A reasonable person doesn't shout it on the rooftops where they live, how wealthy they are, what they kids look like and so on. And yet, this is what people do when posting things online while using real names (as required by Facebook and a couple of other companies).