Much gathered data are benign and not associated with an individual, but sites do make mistakes and don't always follow through on their listed policies. Some use heavily encrypted methods for transmitting credit card numbers and then leave those same numbers unencrypted on unprotected servers. Others send scads of unsolicited email to site visitors, while others attempt to profile users based on their browsing behavior.

It is interesting that the public's concern, while valid, does not exist to the same extent in older and in many ways more risky mediums. Many who balk at entering credit card information online, will willingly hand their credit card to a waitperson and watch it walk away to unknown destinations. Many of us will also happily recite our zip code to shop clerks for profiling purposes and gladly accept the unsolicited catalogs we receive.