But I don't want you to know who I am!

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by €uroMeinke

But when we all know each other's quirks - you're somewhat forced to accept them - or realize they aren't all that wierd after all. It's the unknown that we are most afraid of and anonymity creates a lot of that.

Yes, but there are two key differences between the work place/small town analogies and the situation that would be created by this proposed law.

1) In the former, there are some controls as to who's in and who's out. Not so much for an internet community. As we have seen, they can grow to staggering proportions rather quickly. Now, the easy rebuttal to that is that this law isn't putting your info out for all members to see, just the adminsitrators. But there you run smack into...

2) Lack of reciprocation. In the small town/work place situation, there's a bidirectionality. "You can know everything about me, I can know everything about you." Not so with this law. You'd be require to divulge info to the operators of whatever board, while they are under no obligation to return. Such one-sidedness makes it far easier for the less scrupulous operators to do less scrupulous things.