search for and publish private or identifying information about (a particular individual) on the Internet, typically with malicious intent.
I’m not sure if @hanera’s action fits that description. The information he posted is not private, but it is identifying for sure. Also, what is his intent? Maybe he can explaining further…
Yes so @hanera should have posted equivalent information about himself before posting that info about @ptiemann, just to be fair… otherwise people might come to the conclusion that his intent was malicious…
The forum is like a party with many guests. Imagine one guest, upon learning another guest’s name, google his public information and announce to the whole room: hey people, this guy’s phone number is such and such and his businesss is so and so.
It’s not a legality question. People are free to look up public information. It’s more like an etiquette and ethical question. Besides it may make people uncomfortable. Therefore not cool.
100% agree with above. I don’t think @hanera’s intent was malicious. Maybe he got a little over enthusiastic about this online discovery. However, it can make people wary of posting freely on this forum if they feel their publicly available info can be linked back here. There’s a reason @manch didn’t make linking our LinkedIn and FB accounts mandatory here. Even though that info is public, it’s each poster’s prerogative whether they are comfortable sharing it here or not.
Yeah there is some arbitrary line and our standard is actually pretty lax. Like people swear, make occasionally racist and sexist comments, sometimes even personally attack each other. But doxxing seems to be an easy call.