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Please stop... to collect email addresses you don't really need.

When I participate in some kind of online community, I want to chose if I receive emails from them at all. And if not, it should be my choice if I provide any email address at all.

I have a small site where you can participate anonymously or log in, and when you create an account it's your choice if you provide an email address at all. If not, and you lose your password, you're out of luck.



True, although I'm a fan of 'tiered' services since robots (spammers, trolls, and others) also participate, I'd like a way of saying "this is a real person".

If you're looking for a startup idea how about a service that creates an anonymous ID (to me anyway) where the user provides that id to me, I send it to a service and get back a 'reputation' bit which says if you're a good guy or a bad guy (person what ever). And a way to report you've not been co-operating so that others can benefit.

Ebay reputation model but nominally anonymous. (at some point in some server somewhere there will be a way to link token a to token b but I'm totally ok if it can't be resolved into an actual person.)


Thats true for many things, but often money is involved (say amazon or some other online shop).

And telling your customer that they are out of luck may not be acceptable.




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