Some fun invading your privacy.

I came across a site called Fundrace 2004, which lets you search political contributions for the 2004 presidential race by name or address. It uses electronic contribution data from the 2004 presidential race to generate results, and see where the money that affects elections actually comes from. The features could use some work (no sorting of results, and no records for third party donations) but the interface is really excellent.

For example, a search for 1130 Amsterdam Ave reveals that we are in an almost entirely blue area. Andy's neighborhood in Cambridge, in the 02138 zip code, is even more democratic. (In other news, water is wet). The City Maps feature is very nice, especially for New York.

I spent quite a bit of time on the site, looking up neighbors, professors, certain University provosts, Wall Street CEOs, and favorite authors. I'll tally this up in the "time wasted on the Internet" column. However, I feel a little bit guilty. The guilt comes not from finding out where these people place their political allegiance (that's usually pretty obvious already), but from the seemingly blatant intrusion into their finances.

Personally, I have no qualms about sharing information about my finances, but maybe now I'm becoming more aware of the standard etiquette in this country, when it comes to such matters. But this sort of transparency certainly has its benefits, at least as far as campaign finance reform is concerned. So, what are the ethical implications here? Are there any?