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A couple of other answers are a bit over the top, so I’ll give it a go too.

When you go to Starbucks you make an active choice to give the baristas your name (or any name) without them checking it’s actually yours.

What companies like Facebook and Google do is record your every move online with no effort or repeated decisions on your part on what to share with them. They, and whoever they sell your data to, can then build a profile around whatever aspect of your interests they choose, which will consist of associated risks and gains. That’s quite scary to me because they probably know more about some things about me than my closest friends and family do.

If someone without good intentions, someone who wants something from me, someone I’ve wronged, someone who could just gain something from me has that data they can use it to manipulate me.




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