[MRM]

Yeah, remember the guy who used to use his real name as his screen name here until a crazy ex started stalking him and read all his posts, including the ones with personal information? Poor guy had to change his screen name and swear everyone on the board to double secret agent secrecy before he could come back.

Some people just don't have Charles' sense of security and leave too many digital tracks all over the Internet. Those people don't need a PI to be tracked down.

For regular people you really do need a professional with some training to make sure the information found is accurate and complete. When I was doing it I had an analyst trained to do my link analysis. Otherwise you're just not sure you've gotten everything and aren't getting false positives, unless you really want to go to every county courthouse in the country and do a physical records search of your own. Most people don't, which is why they subscribe to commercial databases and hire professionals to search for them.