To: cypherpunks@toad.com M >Same goes for the supermarket reselling my M >buying patterns. If they can sell information about me, my groceries M >are cheaper (or they make money). Selling personal information is a M >competitive advantage. For most people, this is more important than M >privacy. M > M > Marc But it's trivial in the case of supermarket "Price Plus" card programs to use a nome de guerre and a mail drop (which you should be using in any case). Thus you get the discount and the supermarket gets purchasing info which may or may not match your actual demographics depending on whether or not you lied about those as well as your name on the initial ap. Secured credit cards allow you similar anonymous use of payment facilities (if obtained in a nome de guerre) without surrendering privacy. That said, I realize that it is difficult even to convince civilians of the benfits of receiving all their mail via an agent. They consider it weird. Perhaps "celebrity stalkers" and the general breakdown in civility will ecourage the use of communications screening devices like mail receiving services, voice mail, and the coming network-based communications servers. Duncan Frissell What this metaverse needs is a cheap anonymous communications server for all who want one. This software entity located "somewhere on the nets" would receive all email, voice, fax, video, and VR communications directed to an individual, record and filter them, and forward (anonymously) those communications that meet certain pre-established criteria to its principal located "somewhere on the nets." --- WinQwk 2.0b#0