4 ms·

In the case of requiring a phone number for emails it's to try and cut down on spam / bots abusing their service.

gabereiser 5y ago
you would think, but that's not the case. It's used to correlate data sharing between data brokerages. Facebook has your number, Twitter has your number, Microsoft has your number. What better FK to link all this data together than that? Now Microsoft knows what you searched for. Twitter knows what you bought on Amazon. Facebook knows who you hung out with. It's all about the data brokerages.
- judge2020 5y ago
  Obviously it can be for more than one purpose. See spam reports from email1@outlook.com with phone number $x? Disable sending email for all accounts with that phone number. They've already signed up for three accounts this month with that number? Stop them from making any more without paying for a new number.
  - gabereiser 5y ago
    I mean, sure, it can be used this way. Often is for email deduplication of accounts. It's real strength comes from 3rd party data brokers and correlating various data profiles to you, the consumer.
- gigel82 5y ago
  I'd be very surprised if these companies actually share the private data with each-other (or any external party for that matter). I worked at a FAANG and they take private data handling very seriously (you can't even access it internally without a very involved approval process and always partially).
  - gabereiser 5y ago
    They don’t share it directly with each other, it’s through data brokers. Oracle being the biggest (here in the states) along with Experian, equifax, etc. I’m not talking about platform specific data. I’m talking about browser history, cookies, transactional, and the like. I know for a fact that one FAANG uses your browsers history to run adtech against it to show you relevant ads related to a previous search. Just because you couldn’t access it, doesn’t mean someone else wasn’t.
  - reaperducer 5y ago
    I'd be very surprised if these companies actually share the private data with each-other (or any external party for that matter). They share it with "trusted partners." Which means data brokers. It's like money laundering, but for information. Look for the word "partners" in the small text of anything you commit to from signing up for e-mail to installing software to buying a car.
  - sys_64738 5y ago
    They share salary information with data brokers.

you would think, but that's not the case. It's used to correlate data sharing between data brokerages. Facebook has your number, Twitter has your number, Microsoft has your number. What better FK to link all this data together than that? Now Microsoft knows what you searched for. Twitter knows what you bought on Amazon. Facebook knows who you hung out with. It's all about the data brokerages.

judge2020 5y ago
Obviously it can be for more than one purpose. See spam reports from email1@outlook.com with phone number $x? Disable sending email for all accounts with that phone number. They've already signed up for three accounts this month with that number? Stop them from making any more without paying for a new number.
- gabereiser 5y ago
  I mean, sure, it can be used this way. Often is for email deduplication of accounts. It's real strength comes from 3rd party data brokers and correlating various data profiles to you, the consumer.
gigel82 5y ago
I'd be very surprised if these companies actually share the private data with each-other (or any external party for that matter). I worked at a FAANG and they take private data handling very seriously (you can't even access it internally without a very involved approval process and always partially).
- gabereiser 5y ago
  They don’t share it directly with each other, it’s through data brokers. Oracle being the biggest (here in the states) along with Experian, equifax, etc. I’m not talking about platform specific data. I’m talking about browser history, cookies, transactional, and the like. I know for a fact that one FAANG uses your browsers history to run adtech against it to show you relevant ads related to a previous search. Just because you couldn’t access it, doesn’t mean someone else wasn’t.
- reaperducer 5y ago
  I'd be very surprised if these companies actually share the private data with each-other (or any external party for that matter). They share it with "trusted partners." Which means data brokers. It's like money laundering, but for information. Look for the word "partners" in the small text of anything you commit to from signing up for e-mail to installing software to buying a car.
- sys_64738 5y ago
  They share salary information with data brokers.