Since the fall of 2013, Jesse T., of Sonoma County, Calif., has found it nearly impossible to land a job. He has applied for construction, manufacturing and electrical positions, with no luck. After nearly a year of unreturned calls and emails, his friend alerted him to a troubling Web page.
His friend asked whether Jesse was in prison, according to an arrest warrant, which did not give Jesse’s last name. When Jesse searched his own name in Google, the first result was a post on Mugshots.com, a website that mines publicly available arrest records from across the country. It indicated that Jesse had been arrested and included his full name, address and the reason for his detention.
