eBay: Big Brother?

2:27 PM me: this.. is slightly disturbing
so i’m trying to get my ebay pw, cuz i forgot it
long story short.. to verify my identity, they asked me to verify the city and the state in which my [ ] address is associated with
2:28 PM this is my current address in NY, so i easily answered the questions
now, my concern is this: i never inputted my new york address into my ebay account. how did they know to ask for it?
i asked the guy. he said they use publicly available county and city records.
which.. is a bit concerning.
2:29 PM —: Impressive
2:30 PM me: very “big brother”-feeling.
2:31 PM i also asked how they knew it was me.. what if there was a [tehjoyof] that lived in, say, zimbabwe
he said “We have ways to checked whether we’re talking to the account owner. However, security precautions prevent me from discussing our proprietary tools and investigation procedures that led us to this
action.”