Literally anyone could do the same thing with the telephone directory in the 80s ;P

Or, change the country to Sweden and anyone can still look it up, even online :) Checkout hitta.se, ratsit.se or similar services.

Which reminds me that someone claimed that the income/amount of tax paid is the most private data American citizens have (the context was the DOGE/payments stuff), meanwhile every Swedish residents income is very public information.

Negotiating your salary is a whole other ballgame when you know your colleagues salary and your boss knows that you know :)

It was the fastest way to find Sarah Connors

In practice in the 80s you could do a name->address or name->phone lookup

You couldn't do a phone->name or address->name lookup

There were "reverse directories" for phone->name, though you didn't get one delivered to your house with your phone subscription. You could also call directory assistance.

You could. Phone companies published reverse phone directories, with name and address listed by number.

Yeah but I also remember that when I signed up for phone service, I could opt out of being in the phonebook at all if I wanted to. And you'd have to wait up to a year before the new phone books came out with updated information.