In the context of VPNs for example. Some VPNs store and provide information about what sites you go to third parties. Third parties analyze it and figure out what adds to show you. Hmm… then let them show me those adds they want to show me. I do hate adds as a whole and use an add blocker, thus. But I couldn’t care less what particular type of adds they show me, they are still adds.
Someone knows what sites I go, what then. If someone curiously inquired me on this type of information I’d tell them without giving a second thought. Incomparably larger amount of data I put out just by making comments and posts.
I’m cool with telling people in real life almost anything about me sans my SSN and passwords. I don’t consider any of it personal and have probably too much trust in random strangers.
I still recognize others might not be like me, and don’t shame them for their choice to not share details they consider personal. Even if it’s something like what their favorite food is. A little weird in my opinion, but I’m still not entitled to that information.
I’m also aware of how people can use information against you. I trust you not to go trying to commit identity theft with my birthday and SSN and real name, but a bad actor scraping the web for SSNs totally will. So I have to hide some things. I’m definitely not ashamed I was born on DD-MM-YYYY with the name Firstname Lastname and assigned the SSN 000-00-0000, but I also know people will use this combination of information in order to harm me. Is their intent to hurt me specifically? Probably not, they just want to spend money that is not theirs. Will I get hurt anyways? Yes. And if I’m not careful about it, a lot of other information about me (like my hobbies, the way I type, etc.) can be used to link my online identities together and eventually find one of them that tells you I am Firstname Lastname, and a different online identity that tells you I was born DD-MM-YYYY (I should probably go scrub my birthday off everything). This, even without the SSN, is enough to get you trusted as being me for a lot of things, like when you call into a pharmacy. And I ask the customer service person to pass on my complaint about that about 10% of the times I call into such places where the security should probably be tighter. My SSN might be harder to find because I don’t talk about what it is, but I hear they get bought and sold online pretty often. Some website that did need my SSN gets hacked, and now that’d be ripe for the taking too.
There’s definitely some information that I’ve shared that is probably not in my best interest, so I understand being the type of person who tells people almost anything. I’m pretty much an open book with close friends and family. It’s one reason I like to avoid sites like Facebook and use sites that emphasize anonymity more. Sometimes I have to keep myself safe from myself lol