"I think it's spooky. Everybody has that one number, and everything about you is tied to it. Put it in a computer and poof -- here's your bank account, your phone number, where you work..."

-- Jim Edwards, program director, WJNO, West Palm Beach, Fla.

Jim Edwards was way ahead of most people. Back in the early '80s he refused to give his Social Security number when he enrolled at Miami Dade Community College. The school wanted to use it as a student identification number, but Edwards held his ground and the school gave him a different number -- all zeros, as he recalls.

Schools, phone companies, utilities, health clubs, insurance companies, video stores -- just about everybody wants your SSN. Some of the more prevalent uses are to get your credit rating and determine whether you pay your bills, and to keep track of you through name and address changes.

But companies also use your number to develop marketing lists, which they can sell to other companies. A list with the numbers is more valuable than one without.

Why should you care who sees your Social Security number? The more people who see it, the more susceptible you are to identity theft, where you are victimized by someone fraudulently using your name and credit report to steal money.

Identity theft costs American businesses billions each year, costs that are eventually passed on to all consumers. The toll on victims is heavy, too. The California Public Interest Research Group estimates that, on average, identity theft victims each spend 175 hours and $800 trying to clear their records of fraudulent charges.

"I've seen accounts opened with wrong names and different addresses. As long as there's an SSN, that's all some of them care about," says Linda Foley of the San Diego-based Identity Theft Research Center.