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Online, has anyone noticed?

Your information is valuable, especially when it's associated to a specific interest, dodgy websites will collect people's info and sell it to the highest bidder, you are then likely to receive spam and cold phone calls, often from less than reputable companies and in the worst case scenario some could even be trying to scam you.

If I truly want to access a site that I don't really want to sign up permanently to I will use fake details and a temporary email address like 10 Minute Mail for instance so you can even confirm your email address, you can usually even put in a fake phone number.

Never give any bank or card details to a company or website you don't totally trust, a common scam that is bordering on being legal is asking you to sign up to a free service, but in the small print it will tell you that after an initial period they will take money unless you cancel a subscription and people will often wonder why money is missing from their bank account with an unidentified charge before they realise what has happened, sometimes it can also be difficult to cancel and dodgy sites may not even openly advertise that you are starting a free trial before being charged if you don't cancel. Another example is a loan company that asks you to give your bank / card details as part of a loan application so they can pay the funds into it, but in the small print it will tell you that they're taking a service charge as an agent to look for loans for you on your behalf that you're unlikely to get without a guarantor when you have bad credit and you could just apply directly anyway, sometimes the money will even be a subscription which you are unlikely to ever get back. In fact never give money upfront for a loan, no reputable company will ever ask for this, a friend once fell for such a scam for a "guaranteed credit card" that was supposed to have at least a £1000 limit, but he got a prepaid credit card without any money topped up on it for I think £50 and he never got a refund. Even when giving your mobile number be warned, without realising you could be signing up to an SMS service where you're charged premium rates for every SMS received, what is worse is you could give your worst enemy's number if you knew their mobile number or someone you've fallen out with which potentially makes anyone a victim when they give out their mobile number. Watch out for phishing sites, E.g. fake sites that are a front end replica copy of a reputable website such as Paypal in order to steal your login details, often you may receive a fake email linking you to such a site, it may say something like "Paypal account suspended" and then ask you to login for details on unbarring your account on their fake site, sometimes you could be targeted specifically if you leave your details on dodgy sites. Be careful with using the same user name password combinations when signing up to websites, if the site is dodgy they could be testing these combinations against common sites like Paypal and using the same combination is dangerous anyway because servers are hacked more often than many people realise, I recommend using a password manager to keep unique and strong passwords for every site you sign up to such as Lastpass. There are obviously other scams and in the very worst case scenario you could even end up a victim of either identity and/or bank fraud.

PS: If you are ever unsure about a business website try checking them out on Trustpilot before deailing with them or even leaving any personal details. If they're not listed there try search Google for the name of the website and the word "review", or even the word "scam" if you are suspicious.
 
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All the info gathering on me seems to have the internet confused . On Pinterest I get all these ads for plus size bras, make-up, diamonds, celebrity info. I try and try to get it to change by hitting hide and looking up things like chainsaws but still, as far as the info gathering is concerned I am a large busted woman with loads of make-up wearing a diamond solitaire watching reality television. :pOr maybe am on reality television?! :pCould it be that I live in Dallas and am a house wife there???? :pAm I getting paid for this???

I even changed my gender from female to neutral thinking that might help. Nope.
 
All the info gathering on me seems to have the internet confused . On Pinterest I get all these ads for plus size bras, make-up, diamonds, celebrity info. I try and try to get it to change by hitting hide and looking up things like chainsaws but still, as far as the info gathering is concerned I am a large busted woman with loads of make-up wearing a diamond solitaire watching reality television. :pOr maybe am on reality television?! :pCould it be that I live in Dallas and am a house wife there???? :pAm I getting paid for this???

I even changed my gender from female to neutral thinking that might help. Nope.

What if they took all that data and created virtual versions of us to predict our behavior and run a simulation on the likelyhood of buying or doing certain things?

Omg it's sims. Black budget edition :eek:
 
I use Adblock which blocks most adverts. Another things that really bugs me are moving banners heading the web page, gif images of any kind, pop-ups and videos that automatically start up as soon as you enter the page. I have an app that freezes gifs, too... life saver.
 
This right here. If people would take extra measures to safeguard their personal information, they could avoid complications and head-scratching down the road when someone decides to exploit them for personal gain.

Started using temporary e-mail the moment I heard of it as I'm now getting into the habit of treating my e-mail address like a credit card number. I can't stress enough just how useful this is.

Temporary email? How do you do that? Open more email accounts? How to get rid of them?
 
Temporary email? How do you do that? Open more email accounts? How to get rid of them?

If you use Yahoo Mail, if you don't log in for 90 days after setting it up, you lose the account, so you could "forget the password" or whatever.
 
It isn't an ad. We do not get paid for it.
Ok, now I get that this is for a cause related to US legistation, but when I first opened it, it scared me, and it took me several attempts before I was able to open the site. I had no warning - I am not in the US and am not aware of this legal issue so the banner meant nothing to me, all I was aware of was this bright blood red banner not letting me close it, taking up the WHOLE of my screen - forcing me to interact with it. I had no idea what it was and for all I knew my computer had been hijacked by a virus, and I just panicked. I was scared to click on anything, because I am aware of the dangers of interacting with unknown software. NOT exactly autism friendly. It there no subtler way of doing this???? Do we have to get this huge, intrusive, annoying banner???
 
It isn't an ad. We do not get paid for it.
You don't have to to get paid for it for it to be defined as an advertisement, here is a dictionary definition:

1. a paid announcement, as of goods for sale, in newspapers or magazines, on radio or television, etc.
2. a public notice, esp. in print.
3. the action of making generally known.


In this case the advertisement falls into the 2nd and 3rd definition, it is a notice that makes people generally aware of the issue of net neutrality and it encourages people to support it. I got a leaflet through the door inviting me to a free carol service at my local church in the run up towards last Christmas, it's a free event, but it's still an advertisement.

Back to the subject of the thread, the net neutrality Ad didn't stop anyone from viewing the site and ASPIESCentral doesn't block non signed up members from reading the main part of the forum either. There is a small designated members and also a VIP area, but that is understandable and some members don't want their threads indexed by search engines. ASPIESCentral also definitely respect members privacy with any sign up information provided, E.g. we don't start getting masses of nasty spam that specifically targets autistic people after signing up, lol!

PS: I'm not certain as to whether the net neutrality ad will block search engine bots from accessing the main part of the site without looking into it in detail, but I suspect you can exclude main search engine bots from seeing it. If it does block major search engines from indexing the site it is a very bad idea, a lot of members will have found their way here via search engines.
 
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Temporary email? How do you do that? Open more email accounts? How to get rid of them?

temporary email - Google Search

temp-mail.org is just one example, but you can use other sites in that search as a substitute for your email address. It's temporary though and not for long term use, so after a certain period of time (or however it works according to each website) that's it.

You can also use an alternate gmail account (or accounts, I doubt Google cares much), good for long term use and easy to get rid of...or forget about.
 
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It's the new privacy policy that gets me (EU laws) everyone is asking you to agree to new contracts. I'm never sure if they are better or worse and trying to hold my ground - Anyone els unsure ?
 

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