I read an article in the New York Times regarding last months launch of www.criminalsearches.com. Essentially it’s a free service that lets you search government records criminal backgrounds. And you can search for everyone… in every state. Keep in mind, it’s using all public data that’s available — except now it’s online and for free. Whoaaaaa - what!?!

“…the site draws data directly from local courthouses and offers records of arrests and convictions in connection with everything from murder to minor infractions like blowing past a stop sign — at least for jurisdictions that include traffic violations in their criminal data. It also lets users view a map showing addresses and names of all those arrested or convicted of a crime in a specific neighborhood, and to place alerts that prompt e-mail when someone in their life gets busted or someone with a record moves in nearby (via).”

It’s increasingly more common for everyone — not just HR departments to “Google” your name to see what kind of information they can find out about you. I’m sure there are critics out there that will say this is “creepy” and “unfair”. However, if the information is not restricted in any way, placing it online for reference is was inevitable. Try it out, you know you want to .

» www.criminalsearches.com