I was writing a review of a certain local crap mechanic in Yahoo Yellow pages and I noticed the members' profile page. From there you can search people by name for their telephone and email address! I know where this guy lives, so it doesn't interest me to go snooping for his personal details, but I tried a little experiment, and searched my father's name by email address.

Bloody hell, judging by the extensive results, I could have a hundred fathers! It was like a reversal of a girl in every port. A father in every state.

Anyway, the point is, I can barely remember my father's private email address, and I am his son, so why a complete stranger should be able to find it... Basically, I thought that access to that sort of info was a bit too intrusive for my liking.

And from there I followed a couple of clicks and found a site, Intelius, where you could enter a name and for $49.95 find the Social Security number, name, address, neighbors and all sorts of personal details. Now that I thought was well spooky. Why would I want to know about my father's neighbor?

That lead me to People You will see in hell. A site full of nasty people located all around America. And of course, that explained why people like to search for neighbors!!

Right or wrong?

If you are a sex offender you should be labelled as such your whole life. On the flip side, it is only right that society be well educated about how to deal with such people.

I am not on the side of the bad guys, but I do wonder if anyone can be trusted to do the right thing with publicly available info. For instance, if you are not a sex offender and have nothing to hide, what is the big deal about knowing my address? How about lots!

How about if you were the upstanding pediatrician whose house was vandalised by neighbors. The neighbors were so literate, that after coming across her personal info in public records, they thought that her job title meant she was a child molestor! Seriously, that happened in the UK a few years ago.

Then there is risk of identity theft, harrassment from people who wish you physical harm, harrassment from people after your money, after your vote, after your approval... Let's face it, from knowledge comes power and with power comes all sorts of bad shit, especially when power is in unaccountable hands.

Too much freedom of information

Yes, I am very wary of all this freedom of information crap, but not because I have a guilt complex. Having recently been checked out by the FBI, I can proudly announce that I have nothing to hide in terms of illegalities, but I am a private person by nature, and a cynic too.

Why should I feel relaxed knowing some clerk at a commercial company is looking through all my spending habits trying to work me out? I am not interested in them, so leave me alone, and stop mailing me brochures for colostomy bags. Just because I am called the Pisstaker, jeezus.

I don't trust anybody outside of the top agencies to do the right thing with my info, and neither should you! And I guess if I were a former blonde bombshell CIA spy called Valerie, I wouldn't trust the authorities to keep my personal info private, either!

Have a good holiday, folks, and remember, in this time of festive fun, don't be paranoid, be very paranoid.