Any way to stop websites like Radaris.com or Intelius.com?

AladainAF_sl said:

Yeah, and it's funny, because everyone here in America is so dumb and keeps saying "herp derp, can't do anything about it, privacy isn't a right, etc", whereas an individual's right to privacy is something that Europe has done much, much, much better than America has - mainly because the people in Europe don't tolerate their personal business being farmed out for free to everyone who can operate google.

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Camera on every street corner in London. It's not quite that black and white.

Europe DOES do a better job with right to privacy.

What these sites don't have is medical records. They're not listing, "So-and-so lives at XXX Street, City and he was diagnosed with chronic allergy-induced flatulence on 5/9/2012" They don't have the emails that you write to your mistress. They don't have anything that actually is private. So they have a record of where you live? Well, your deed is not private information. It is public information. They have your online resume? That shit is not private to begin with! That's the whole point!

I don't see why any government would forbid the private maintenance of a public records database. I don't see how they could, actually, and still have their economy work.

They may regulate it more than we do. I don't know.

I believe the best way to guard privacy rights is to give the devil his due. A broad, bright line. And you only worry about what's on the "private" side of it. There's still enough of it on that side to worry about.

Didn't have a lot on me and most of it was 10+ years old.

Guess not being on facebook or any of the other social vomit sites helps.

OneofOne_sl said:

Do you work for one of these scumbag businesses who comb State sites finding people with money owed to them, locate the owner, tell them they are owed money (but not how to collect it, of course) and say you'll get it to them for a 50% (or other stupidly high fee) cut?

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No, although it wouldn't surprise me such companies exist. If certain businesses, like insurance or financial, can't locate a beneficiary/recipient of money that is due and they cannot locate said individual after a good faith effort (those "evil" info sites can be an awesome tool for helping to locate said individual), then they typically have to turn over the money to whatever state's unclaimed property division eventually. Usually there is a grace period after that point where whatever person in question (or other interested parties, like creditors) can try to approach the state and make claim to the money, but if that period expires without a peep from any legit party, then the cash gets absorbed by the state.

The primary difference is that 'public' information started in a world where it took physical effort to go obtain it. This is no longer the case with the internet. Privacy (and in effect security) through obscurity is no longer practical even for the average Joe. The 'up' side, of course, is that someone still has to 'target' you to get anywhere with simple public records for some sort of crime or revenge or whatever. This isn't a list of credit card numbers in plain text. However, the scary part is that it's still there if someone wants it.

Hahhhhhhhhhh... those sites are shit. I also am surprising low-key on the interwebs. And what they did have was shit info.

One of them had my age as 37. Not even 30 yet.