Right on but didn't you forget about apps?
a despairing voice of reason [sadly, a bit of a rarity on register these days]
I also hide at Amazon or ebay to escape this info grab..
If you factor in motley 'verified by mastercard' schemes then sites are not attracting customers but actually driving them away. Sites trading in info need to ask themselves what business they are really in..
I would add that the same is happening with 'apps'
As an example I've been looking for a RSS reader/scraper for some Samsung Nexus iPaid Appple thingies
I can't get one - free or paid - that does not force me to hand over my details.
There is no benign or practical reason for this.
App makers should pay me to permit them to track my reading habits so they may profit from it.
It's unclear if this trade in 'soft-spam' is sustainable in the long term but if personal information is being monetised by companies to mine it, exploit it and trade in it then they must pay consumers to get it.
Currently we are happy to give it away for free....
That's got to change.