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Emails are fine, as they can be anonymous as long as you don't use one of the larger providers. Phone numbers, not so much. They are in many countries tied to

Emails are fine, as they can be anonymous as long as you don't use one of the larger providers. Phone numbers, not so much. They are in many countries tied to people's real IDs because something about stopping organized crime.

Gigachad 2y ago
That’s basically the point though. Websites ask for your phone number because it’s the easiest way to limit abuse. Eventually everyone has a phone number, and very few have ways to create multiple.
- gspr 2y ago
  > Eventually everyone has a phone number, and very few have ways to create multiple. I agree that having a phone number often comes with a paper trail in many jurisdiction, but surely it's not common to make it hard to have multiple such numbers?
  - michaelt 2y ago
    It's not unusual for someone to have a home landline phone, a personal cell phone, a work landline, and a work cell phone. In fact it's so common that people in the snooping business already know ways to correlate them.
  - echoangle 2y ago
    It's not hard to have multiple, but it's hard to have on-demand throwaway ones.
- mdp2021 2y ago
  > the easiest way to limit abuse It's also an almost perfect way to limit use (excluding the right people).
oarsinsync 2y ago
> Emails are fine, as they can be anonymous as long as you don't use one of the larger providers I’ve always struggled with this. If you use a large provider for your email, the provider can likely de-anonymize you, but the person you give your email address to will struggle. If you use your own domain, you’ve de-anonymized yourself already. So I guess you have to use a smaller provider like protonmail? Which gets messy once you start wanting to have lots of email addresses, or to use subaddressing of some sort?
- yupyupyups 2y ago
  It's those smaller providers I was hinting at. But that's true, some of them do not like us creating multiple accounts (like Protonmail), but others don't mind. I think using a reliable smaller provider of the latter variaty and donating money to them would make a nice synergy.

Gigachad 2y ago

That’s basically the point though. Websites ask for your phone number because it’s the easiest way to limit abuse. Eventually everyone has a phone number, and very few have ways to create multiple.

gspr 2y ago
> Eventually everyone has a phone number, and very few have ways to create multiple. I agree that having a phone number often comes with a paper trail in many jurisdiction, but surely it's not common to make it hard to have multiple such numbers?
- michaelt 2y ago
  It's not unusual for someone to have a home landline phone, a personal cell phone, a work landline, and a work cell phone. In fact it's so common that people in the snooping business already know ways to correlate them.
- echoangle 2y ago
  It's not hard to have multiple, but it's hard to have on-demand throwaway ones.
mdp2021 2y ago
> the easiest way to limit abuse It's also an almost perfect way to limit use (excluding the right people).

oarsinsync 2y ago

> Emails are fine, as they can be anonymous as long as you don't use one of the larger providers I’ve always struggled with this. If you use a large provider for your email, the provider can likely de-anonymize you, but the person you give your email address to will struggle. If you use your own domain, you’ve de-anonymized yourself already. So I guess you have to use a smaller provider like protonmail? Which gets messy once you start wanting to have lots of email addresses, or to use subaddressing of some sort?

yupyupyups 2y ago
It's those smaller providers I was hinting at. But that's true, some of them do not like us creating multiple accounts (like Protonmail), but others don't mind. I think using a reliable smaller provider of the latter variaty and donating money to them would make a nice synergy.