In the age of the Internet, we have all but surrendered the privilege of privacy. If you feel a burning need to check out someone's driving record, job status or just about anything else, you can do it online. On the same time people can find out just about anything about you.

Records once available only inside the bowels of public buildings, from divorce decrees to real estate holdings to criminal files, now can be found online within seconds, in many cases for free. A simple Google search can turn up someone's résumé, a tidbit about his or her dating life from a former lover's blog, or a potentially incriminating YouTube video. For about $50, companies such as Intelius will instantly produce a comprehensive background report listing a person's address history, relatives, criminal background, home value and bankruptcy information.

We willingly give up our personal information every day, on MySpace, on dating sites, in e-mail, when we're banking or shopping or making a hotel reservation online. Researchers with nefarious motives can turn up Social Security and credit card numbers, sexual orientations and medical records. That drunken tabletop dance documented on someone's cell-phone camera could end up costing you a job or a relationship. Your minor brush with the law that you thought had been expunged from your records may still exist on someone's computer. In most cases, experts said, it is perfectly legal to mine someone's personal information online. But changes may be coming.

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