We’ve all signed up for those “free” offers by entering our first name and email address into an AWeber or GetResponse web form. At the foot of the form will usually be a hyper-linked message concerning privacy and how the organisation or person your are sending your details to will protect your information and never sell it.

In the main I haven’t had cause to believe marketers aren’t sticking to this promise. There are a few notable exceptions, some of them very big names. But I bet their lawyers are better than my hard pressed solicitor so I’ll hold my tongue. Generally though, it appears data protection is pretty solid in the industry.

So you go ahead and enter your name and email, skip through the inevitable one time offers, which I don’t mind at all because this is the nature of the game, and eventually you get your free book or video or whatever else caught your eye.

More and more though, if you decide not to buy anything, before you get your freebies you have to pass through a form that is asking for a whole ton of personal details including your address, your telephone number and even demographic related personal information.

What’s worse, the same thing can happen when you buy a product and attempt to pay with PayPal. Again, before you transfer out to PayPal you get a screen requesting a whole bunch of personal information. In one case, and this a major vendor selling one of the most popular and widely used product in the industry, you even have to divulge your credit card details before you proceed to PayPal.

Now I thought one of the features of PayPal was you could make a payment without having to give out financial details to third parties. So I wonder what PayPal thinks about this development?

I’ve got a lot of experience in commercial lead generation so I know the true value of personal data and I know which items of data are most valuable. Let me tell you, your personal information is way more valuable in real dollar terms than 99% of the freebies you’ll find floating around the Internet.

What I’m wondering is why certain marketers have decided to collect such large amounts of data, if they don’t intend to monetise it contrary to the assurances they give regarding privacy?

I’m not accusing, I’m just saying. I’m only asking.

Personally I believe there will be nasty fallout from the current craze that disregards privacy and sees oblivious Twitter and Facebook types literally telling the world their affairs without a care for the possible consequences.

Couple this with ever increasing demands for your personal and financial data from every Tom, Dick and ACME you transact with and I see happy and prosperous times ahead for the data brokers, spammers, organised criminals and – worst of all – the government.

Yeah, yeah, paranoia and all that. It’ll never happen and being dumb is good for you. You might be right but come back and we’ll talk when the other shoe has dropped.

In the meantime have a thought about what you are sending into cyberspace because once it’s out there you aren’t ever getting it back.