A couple of weeks ago, you mentioned the crappy Sleep Number bed in your business hotel in Denver...

I had the same exact experience - it wouldn't have been that castle-style hotel up in Westminster, would it? The Wyndham?

Several weeks ago I posted about the $99 Wii scam and listed the domain registration record. I chose to include it in the post because it was a public record, and because I thought people who were more technologically savvy than I would use that as the starting point to somehow sniff out the perpetrator. I was naïve, but I actually thought at the time that everyone would know that the information listed on the public record was almost certainly false--probably a stolen ID in fact. Instead, what happened was jackasses around the country started calling this guy's home phone number--he has a wife and newborn at home--and leaving death threats for him. It was really messed up.

Now, as a result, I've decided to err on the other side of the matter. I'll provide enough information to make the story unique, but if there's personally identifiable info, I'll remove it. I don't want to be responsible for anyone doing their own vigilante work on Ly Ly V_____ for instance, or interfering in this situation between Christine and United. (For the record, what she sent us was part of a longer letter she sent to United, in which she included all relevant flight info.)

I'm not sure why readers need to know this. Obviously it would be nice to know enough to be able to avoid similar situations in the future, but knowing the flight number of this flight won't necessarily help you avoid the same flight attendant in the future. I think it's fairer for us to hold the company accountable—United should not condone such behavior from its crew.

Frankly, I'm not sure I'm not overreacting to the whole privacy issue, but the mob-reaction against the guy in the $99 Wii story has really made me gun-shy about including such data in posts anymore. If I can't control how some people will behave irrationally against strangers, I can at least control how much personal data I give out so that everyone involved remains somewhat anonymous.

I'll talk to Ben & Meghan about this and see what they think about how much personal data we should provide in future posts.