Bravo etc etc ...
Well said, Sir/Ma'am/Neuter!
Just a quick seconding of your nano-rant!
While it'd be lovely if said Megacorps didn't rape one's personal data, it ain't about to go away. Now or ever. So yes, leave as light an online trace of yourself as is possible. And FFS, nothing is ever truly free (of some sort of cost). Siri free? Yeah. Sure. Same as Gmail/Google. And whatever it is people use from Redmond*
And yeah, I so have to give a mega-thumbsup to madra's tiny hint to remember how to think, to create knowledge from information, to critically question. Hell, just to remember HOW to work things out for yourself. At least that's what I think madra was suggesting?
"Ihre versteckten Person" (aka 'your privacy freak')
*Disclaimer: I have, on sundry devices, for sundry reasons, Win7, Win8, Linux (2 flavours), OS X (two versions) and, sadly also iOS (but buggerall Siri). Oh wait, also 'droid tablet lodged with a family member. So feel free to flame me :-)