Why would a social networking site want to know my birthday?

You are exactly right to be skeptical of this sort of thing! I have also received a number of these sort of solicitations to complete "a birthday database" or someone's "horoscope" or similar seemingly fishy reasons (at least it's fishy if you're as skeptical as I am).

These queries are innocent enough, and indeed look identical to legitimate queries from one of the hundreds of social networks! They're ostensibly from a friend who is completing their birthday calendar, reminder system, astrological compatibility chart or whatever, but almost every timeI have never heard of these "friends" before.

Indeed, quite recently I received one of these sort of email queries from "Mahesh" asking for my birthday and place of birth. I was curious since Mahesh didn't ring a bell with me -- and I'm pretty good at remembering names -- so I searched all my email and online archives to see if I'd ever interacted with someone named Mahesh at any level. I drew a blank. Hmmm....

I hate to always be so darn skeptical, but it sure looks to me like this, like your own email message, could well be what's called a phishing attempt from some sort of identity theft group. As a general question, why on Earth would I share my birthday and place of birth (a common password recovery question) with someone I don't know on a Web site that I've never heard of before?

My suggestion if you receive this sort of email, or any email requesting that you divulge any personal information, from someone you don't know and haven't heard of before is to just delete it. Don't click on the unsubscribe option, just jettison it.

Reminds me, somehow, of the earlier discussion on Plaxo Spam too. Again, who is this person requesting information from me, and why would I want to share it with them?

How about you? Have you received any of these type of information solicitations?

This article was written by Eric Savage, who has been involved with business and management for long enough to figure this all out.