When you join a new " social networking site " that is asking for your home address before you can become a member, how can you be sure this information will not be used inappropriatly?

Here’s one option: When this happens, open a new tab and do a google search with the following. Type the name of the site in question and then type the word review after it (e.g mastersofhearts.com review). Select the review your gut likes the most. A review will, of course, tell you if the site is legit or not.

@Spinel Thank you very much.

Macafee says the site is safe.

From the Alexa stats, it looks to be a healthy, established website.

@Spinel Your awesome! thanx again

If in doubt…...........You could always give a false address?
Or change a detail in it so you won’t get spammed with actual mail (Is “actual” letters, unsolicited, called spam?)
If you don’t want to give a false address you can set up a P.O. box or something?

I’ve never joined a social network that’s required my home address. If I came across one, I wouldn’t trust it. There are plenty of other fish in the sea.

By entering false information.

You could check their privacy policy, which should be accessible from their site.

You can’t. Even if they are legit you can’t be sure they won’t store the data in a plaintext data base

@Lightlyseared that you for posting that link.

You can’t.