[StolarStorm]

What should really scare you, is not your private data, but the incorrect association with other people's data. I've been getting harassed for years by PI's, debt collectors and credit card companies due to the actions of someone that owned my house 20 years ago that I have no other connection to.

Sure, I call each one and tell them to remove me from their database... but there are always other ones that call a few weeks later. The root problem is one of those massive database companies (lexisnexis) that has my address and phone number associated with a crook.

I've called them several times to no avail. I have to hire a lawyer to force them to remove the connection. WHY THE HELL SHOULD I HAVE TO PAY FOR THEIR MISTAKE??? In fact, I should be able to sue them for harassment. Maybe I can.

[StolarStorm]

BTW, to any of you PIs out there. I HATE your kind. None of the countless creeps of your ilk have ever bothered to make sure the data in your little program was correct before harassing my wife and I. And that is the biggest problem with this overreaching reliance on digital data. It is too easy to get fouled up... and near impossible for individuals to get corrected.

[the invisib1e hand]

Yeah, and this: if you’re served papers for any reason (divorce, for example), you’ll find a search has been done for anyone with your name and possible aliases (iirc). That information is contained in the reciprocating party’s copy of the service and can give them plenty of reasons to suspect you of all kinds of things. Not that it’s material, but it can make an already difficult situation that much more so.

[the invisib1e hand]

Also I had a lawyer “friend” once who used to call to shoot the breeze once in a while (never billed me for it) but would always do search on some databases for my name so he’d have something to talk about. A call might begin with, “So, you’re still not divorced yet?”