this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2026
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Privacy
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One wit responded to such requests for ID by sending in a picture of an id with pharoh ramsey's mummy's picture, birthdate thousands bc.
I never agreed to give them my personal information. My emails forced me to, locking me out of accounts I needed to access.
I now found alternative email that doesn't need a phone number or linked other email. I am quitting every site that tried to force me to link my phone number, real name, likeness, id, address, anything like that, without a valid reason.
Amazon just demanded I verify my account again, same ip, same account I've used for years. Verifying under the email I abandoned for forcing my phone verification periodically, that would lock me out of my accounts if I lost my phone or it's service. Trying to make good on my threats to quit them too.
Microsoft had me fill this form, to "prove" I was the rightful owner of the account, after some suspicious login-attempts from an African country. The form included fields like: name (I don't think I supplied at creation, or a false one), other email addresses, previous passwords (which potentially yield completely unrelated passwords), etc.; only for the application to be rejected and locking me out of my primary email for a full month. After that outright violation, I immediately switched to Disroot, and haven't had any of said problems ever since. I backup all its contents locally using Thunderbird, and delete the origins from the server afterwards.
Many platforms have this messed up dark pattern, of revoking one's access to a real-world dependencies, unless giving in to the service's demands. Enforcement of 2FA is another one of those "excuses" for this type of misbehavior, and so is bot-detection.