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That's exactly what the original post said: he won't do it any more.

It's not about the individual, it's a lot of people I hear about this. Yet it is apparently the common practice. I'm asking why.

I guess it is because people see it as necessary in order to build relationships, and have a name. But it looks like it's time to draw a line.

For the same reason it happens in other websites/services: to collect personal data and to subscribe the user to their spam^H^H^H^H mailing list.