Been verified.

Ahh finally, a service for us paranoid schizophrenics!

Is this a real thing? Is this fucking legal?! This allows anyone to find out almost anything about you, including your address and phone number and presumably your social security number, medical records, number of sexual partners, etc. as well. Does that terrify anyone else, or is it just me?

On their website, there's a quote from some press organization called "Venture Beat" that says, "Been Verified is looking to shake up the background check industry with a cheap and fast solution...". The background check industry?! There's an entire industry of companies that invade people's privacy for no reason?! You know, there's a lot of cool things about living in the so-called "information age", but this has got to be a huge fucking check in the con column. I'm not a criminal or anything, but that doesn't mean I want people to be able to look at my background "cheap and fast".

Let's think about the implications of the fact that not only does one service like this exist, but an entire industry of them. Now, I'm not about to sit here and tell you that the world is bright and full of sunshine, but it ain't exactly Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome out there either. Last time I checked, roving bands of homosexual bikers aren't eating and slaughtering each other for gasoline on the streets of mid-class suburbia (that's what that movie was about, right?). But the existence of a service like this does nothing but breed mistrust. It goes like this: people see that Been Verified is out there, and think to themselves, "Gee, if a service like that is doing well enough to be able to afford to paste their commercials all over national television, it must fulfill a legitimate need in our society! Maybe most of the people I come into contact with down at the Starbucks have a history of violence. How do I know that the highly qualified electrician that all my friends had nothing but good things to say about and is highly recommended isn't actually gonna rob my shit?! Oh fuck!"
See, it allows people to see any mistakes someone may have made in the past without allowing for the fact that we ALL make mistakes, and that people can and do change (not to mention the fact that the most dangerous people, such as serial killers, usually don't have much of a criminal record until they're finally caught...). This mistrust goes around and around in a downward spiral, with people running background checks on each other all the time and denying each other goods and services based on one piece of the puzzle of who someone is, until eventually society breaks down and we are forced to strike first or be killed, ironically making a criminal out of everybody and completing the self fulfilling prophecy that is Been Verified.

Pictured: Been Verified's master plan.

...Jesus. I didn't realize how serious this was until I just wrote that last paragraph. People, not since zombies has a threat to the world as we know it this large existed. I'm gonna run a background check on Been Verified to see what dirt I can dig up; we're gonna need all the intel we can get for the upcoming battle.
Stay strong, brothers and sisters. We are the resistance.