This is interesting, Mel, and certainly food for thought...
Just for kicks, I googled all versions of my full name. The only applicable link that was returned was related to a paper I co-authored once -
http://www.spie.org/web/abstracts/ircdrom.pdf.
Perhaps more disturbing is the number of hits returned that were
not me, including obituary noticies, arrest records, myspace pages, etc.
But when I googled 'Lynne Brokeback' I hit on a link leading me straight to
www.bettermost.net/forum, where - you are correct - anybody at all could read everything I've posted publicly here. I would assume hacker skills would be required to get into emails and PMs.
It certainly seems an invasion of personal privacy, particularly in the case of an employer. It strikes me as a form of discrimination to base a hiring decision on a candidate's activities outside the workplace - civic/social involvement, political views, sexual orientation, as well as any ubiquitous indiscreet pics that might surface. But of course none of these are spelled out (yet) as being illegal.
Furthermore, an employer could easily learn answers to questions that are definitely off-limit in a job interview (age, marital status, religion, etc..). This would clearly be illegal, but how would one go about proving that it had occurred?
One thing is certain - technology is advancing so rapidly in every area (medicine, biotech, high-tech, etc..) that the legal system doesn't have much hope of keeping up.
-Lynne
