I have a strong feeling that they collect that information solely for the purpose of gathering demographics data on who uses their websites and services. If you want to attract advertisers and sell lots of banner and ad time, you have to be able to prove how big an audience you reach and what demographics they are composed of. Yahoo being able to tell a potential advertiser that they reach 1.2 million male teenagers, etc. is a selling point.
As for me, I don't really care if they collect a little data of a fairly vague nature, like year of birth and gender. I do get extremely wary when they ask for Social Security numbers, credit card details and the like, though.
I haven't had much problem with spam, regardless.
Take care,
Rick
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