CrustyAdmin - 4:29 pm on Apr 26, 2010 (gmt 0)

Sure, you can lie. But what happens when a potential employer, client (or even a potential girlfriend) realizes that you lied? That's even worse than not being on the web at all (i.e., a luser).

I didn't make my point properly. Yes you need to be honest on your website if you are a business etc. Anything less than professional, i.e. for fun, goofing of cutting up, stuff like that that is mostly harmless, but you don't want bad people building a profile on you or good people knowing every move you make, use an alias, different aliases etc.

By lying it can be simply not full disclosure - an alias, but more often different ages, locations, incomes etc all serve to obfuscate to some extent.

I google my name, I don't have a big result set, but what's there is what I wanted there. Maybe that means I'm doing something right, maybe it means I haven't pissed enough people off :)

Is lying morally wrong, yes. What about when it'd done to protect you identity in and online world that doesn't respect your privacy? The marketers sure as hell don't respect you, why cater to them?

[edited by: CrustyAdmin at 4:34 pm (utc) on Apr 26, 2010]