the easy way to have prevented it... WAS TO NOT PUT IT ONLINE IN THE FIRST PLACE... sheep

That's bad, but at the same time, there's public data aggregators that sell your info, and you could go out right now and find your name, phone numbers you've had, former and current addresses, people you've lived with, former and current jobs, etc. It's kind of terrifying what's "public information," and yet they continue to be allowed to operate with virtual impunity.

I'm not saying we should just accept things, but cutting off this "training data" would be a great start, and if companies can't, then they should be forced to cease operations (including AI chatbots).

AI chatbots could dissect your children and we'd still keep them. We're finished caring about anything but money and power.

I'd like to imagine a different world from this. One where anyone gives a shit about what happens to someone else. Maybe in the next life.

Does no-one remember phone books?

I don't know what kind of googling you guys did before but it's been pretty easy in the past to simply google an address or phone number or name+town combo and get the results of their name, their address, where they work, where they've lived before, the other people who lived at that address... Nowadays you see a paywall for much of it but sometimes it's all exposed.

How do you think people have been doxxing people for so long anyway?