> I'm actually surprised that you would break someone else's privacy like that.

I wasn't aware genealogy was private. I'd assume the opposite, as birth and marriage records are public matters. If I were to post a public tree and someone berated me for it, I'd be dumbfounded at their reaction.

in practice, privacy has more to do with availability of the data than having the ability to get the data

Bingo. You're more private if it costs 10x the amount to get at your data. For example, if you have to phone up the records office yourself to find the records, you're not going to wind up with random people being interested in them, generally speaking - but if they turn up on the first page of google when someone searches your name, there's a lot more people are going to find them. Privacy is all about creating friction - similar to hashcash or similar.

> I wasn't aware genealogy was private. I'd assume the opposite, as birth and marriage records are public matters.

And you are totally in the right.

>I wasn't aware genealogy was private

It is if a large part of your family is poor or you're related to a felon or political extremist. Sure it's not as private as bank records but it's not the kind of thing anyone with a brain would want to make it trivial to find.

Public record is not the same as google-able.

Security questions by default often include Mother's Maiden name.

Right which is why that has always been and will always be a miserable security question.

There has never been a point in the past 20 years when someone's maiden name was difficult to find.

> I'm actually surprised that you would break someone else's privacy like that.

Indeed, I sent an e-mail to my family when I published the genealogical information online. She sent me her concerns years later. It seems she haven't paid attention to my e-mail.

The safe default for any kind of disclosure is opt-in.

I don't think so, genealogy goes well beyond the personal interest of some individuals. The main purpose of my genealogical research involved connecting with family members who were "disconnected" and don't know how to connect with their entire family. In a few years this will be almost impossible to accomplish since many of these "links" will be dead.

Yes, well, that may be so but in some cases those family members are disconnected for a reason. FWIW I have a pretty good reason to be as disconnected from some of my family members as is possible and I find it presumptuous of you that you would feel that your research (which you do for yourself, not for me) would trump my personal interests. After all it would be my name, not yours out there. You are entirely free to do as much research about your genealogy as you wish, but there is absolutely no need to do such a thing publicly.

I understand your perspective but it is not my case. The relationship with my relative is good, we live in different countries, and "all" my family was aware of my genealogical research. I didn't give all details about this because the point of the comment was showing how people selectively and inconsistently manage their privacy.