Comment by JoshTriplett
2 days ago
Ideally, it should not be possible for random hateful people to easily get name/address records from local governments, but that's unfortunately not the world we live in yet.
2 days ago
Ideally, it should not be possible for random hateful people to easily get name/address records from local governments, but that's unfortunately not the world we live in yet.
They could just buy it from data brokers.
Indeed. I was in Sweden and learned that you can look up someone's address and pay on a government website. I think there are some "are you human" checks, but it's basically all in the clear.
It creeped me out a bit and then I was angry when I realized it's the same way in the US, but maybe worse. In the US this is possible too, you just have to pay private data brokers and a bunch of middle men make a cheap buck. Employers sell your pay data, websites sell your address. Everyone makes a buck at your expense.
If you know the region they live in, many counties in the US now let you search property records by name from a simple web form.
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I completely agree, but this isn't the fix. Corporations should be expected to behave like corporations. Having said that, I wouldn't argue against keeping it until we had some better privacy laws and practices in this country(/world)