Reasons to be anonymous

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Here's a reason to be anonymous: I want to filter my own information. From comp.risks:
Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1999 13:08:04 +0100 (BST)
From: Lindsay.Marshall@newcastle.ac.uk
Subject: IP blocking

This was brought to the attention of readers cam-list recently:

"For a month or so earlier this year, DoubleClick Inc., an Internet advertising firm based in New York, furtively put up three different editions of its home page. Most visitors saw one version, highlighting the firm's accomplishments. Employees of a rival firm could see only another version, with a special press release touting DoubleClick's capture of one of the rival's customers. Clients being wooed saw only a third version."

Yes, DoubleClick has a right to release different information (and even spins) to different people. But I want to know when I'm being spun. That is, if I don't know what the information provider knows about me, then I don't know of what target audience I am considered a member.

If I am anonymous, then I know I must be getting "generic" information. If I can control the release of (parts of) my identity, I can negotiate with the information provider to get certain types of information. But I will know the basis of this negotiation.

-- Joshua Tauber, November 4, 1999