Google Groups is a discussion forum service that connects with the original Usenet Newsgroups. It has archives dating back to the 1980’s from the original Usenet archives. These groups were similar to mailing list discussions.

Google Groups People Search

You can search for anything using a keyword including a name, email address, phone number, address and more. During the original time of Usenet, many people weren’t aware of the permanence of the posts they made and privacy not considered. As such there are many details that can be found that you wouldn’t find today in more modern mediums. With over 700 million messages stored in the archives there is a lot of information you can sift and search through.

Note that European users can request to have their archive and name stripped from the archive.

The service continues to function and discussions take place to this day. Any public group can be searched.