<p>OK, back in the old days the only easy access to a person’s address was the phone book. If you were unlisted, it was pretty hard to find you.</p>
<p>Does anyone else find it creepy that the free public records searches available online pop up every city you’ve lived in, and a map with a pin in your house?</p>
<p>We had an issue several years ago where someone got our phone number and made obscene phone calls to my (then) 9 year old son. Totally creepy, cops called, etc., etc… Changed phone number, made it unlisted, etc., etc…</p>
<p>Now a quick internet search draws a map to anyone’s home? UGH!</p>
<p>The key is to keep most confidential info off the internet. Internet Experts recommend not populating your own info (Birthdate, address, job info etc in your Facebook or Myspace) accounts. This is mainly to prevent identity theft. </p>
<p>Facebook allows you to restrict view access to select people. Not sure if Myspace allows this ability or not. Unfortunately, many young people on line are careless about using these security measures.</p>
<p>I do have to admit though that with some adroit searching one can find quite a lot about one’s job and research background. I have google’ed my own name and all my research publications pop up in a row along with my prior employer’s addresses and my job information. Here again, I think the key is to ensure you get the right information out where others in the research area can find it while keeping all other personal information restricted on line.</p>
<p>I don’t post personal info online. The sites I’m talking about use public records, and give out a lot of info. Check out people.yahoo.com. You may be surprised by the detailed info they can give out…</p>
<p>Yes, I’m very uncomfortable with the amount of personal information floating around out there. I once interviewed with a company and decided I was not interested in working with them. Despite having told them I was uninterested, they continued to call until I stopped taking their calls. Then one day my D, who was away at college, starts getting emails from them out of the blue asking her to have me call them back. I was enraged! I was also nervous about who else might be looking her up. I googled her name and there were 4 or 5 pages of search results. </p>
<p>I also was not very happy when one of my employees showed me an aerial photo of my house with my car parked in the driveway that he got off Google. </p>
<p>I also do not like the ease of access now to public records – it bothered me when my neighbors told me what a good deal we got on our house after looking it up online. </p>
<p>It also bothered me that it seemed impossible to stop getting marketing calls on my home phone despite being on the Do Not Call List. They used our phone more than any of us ever did. I no longer have a home phone for that reason. </p>
<p>I hate all the mail I get from places I never heard of with my mortgage information plastered all over it. </p>
<p>I too find it disheartening. And now I have been “forced” to post my resume online (State of California) in order to qualify for unemployment insurance. I deleted my address from it, but am required to have a contact number. I hate it. I have no idea who has access to that information, but I hate it.</p>