I don't know if this actually makes things better or worse - I do it in the hope I can shut down spam by removing a compromised address - but I try very hard to use a different email address for every business I purchase from.
You don't always have to provide a phone number, either. Most of the time yes, but I don't think the phone number is actually required to complete a credit card transaction.
There also used to be credit providers - maybe there still are? - that would let you generate a new card number for each purchase. That too may accomplish nothing from a tracking perspective, since the credit provider would be able to match up all the numbers. But, if I had that capability, I would use it.
Bank of America stopped doing virtual credit card numbers a few years ago.
I think Citibank allows you to do it, but I have no personal experience or knowledge.
I have a card from Capital One that allows virtual credit card numbers.
Privacy.com is a service specifically for this issue. It allows you to generate lots of virtual cards and even use fake names so you can't be tracked so easily.
Obviously you can't but the point people don't realize is that if you use that same card in store the merchant can link it back to online purchases you made and all your information which they can then package and sell to data brokers.
There are credit card services that provide some privacy, such as proxies: I've heard of Abine, Privacy, and something called Final, but I haven't looked into them.
You don't always have to provide a phone number, either. Most of the time yes, but I don't think the phone number is actually required to complete a credit card transaction.
There also used to be credit providers - maybe there still are? - that would let you generate a new card number for each purchase. That too may accomplish nothing from a tracking perspective, since the credit provider would be able to match up all the numbers. But, if I had that capability, I would use it.