We love free information. In fact, we love free information so much that we tend to get up-in-arms when the information we've long been provided suddenly becomes, well, not free. Same goes for inexpensive information. Inexpensive information is great, but when it becomes slightly less inexpensive, we have a problem with that.

In today's something-for-nothing society, it's the exception to find someone who is willing to give a piece of himself or herself in exchange for this free/inexpensive gift of knowledge. An illustration:

In the past few months, I have come across two people who have publicly, almost embarrassingly, voiced their disdain for having to fill out surveys that collect anonymous personal information for two reputable sources of education. Because both of these reputable sources of education happen to be clients of mine, I can say with fair certainty that they're collecting this information for statistical purposes, not because they're going to sell your information.

For example, if you are—hypothetically, of course—taking a class from a nonprofit community education center and they ask you to fill out the usual DOB, ethnicity, and education-level information, they're likely collecting these statistics so they can tailor their course offerings to meet the needs of people in your demographic. Likewise—again hypothetical, of course—if a metropolitan-area newspaper asks you to complete an optional three-question survey with the same information before you access its contents on its free website, maybe they're doing this so they can put your demographic information to use in attracting advertisers.

The point is, they don't ask you these questions to harass you. They do it so they know who you are so they can continue to offer you this free/inexpensive form of education. They do it so that they don't have to raise their prices/charge for previously free information and listen to you bitch about that, too.

Seriously. There's no conspiracy. If it's a reputable group, they're probably not going to sell your information. It's called market research. So, when you think you're being cute (as the most recent case did) and complete the information as an 87-year-old Native American with a Ph.D., you're only making things harder on the very organization that is kind enough to bring you free information.

(Just writing this, my inner marketing geek is getting riled up—HA!)

Want to know what they're going to do with your information? Ask. Then just fill it out.