Doxing is gathering personally identifiable information with intent or threat to publicize it. The technique as such was already known in the 1990s when Usenet users researched and posted the real names belonging to online handles that they had an argument with. The terms dox, derived from docs (as in documents) and doxing started to get used around 2005 when journalists considered it a useful part of investigations. When it concerns the doxings of persons it is usually seen as a form of cyber-bullying.”]
Source: https://blog.malwarebytes.com/101/2016/02/explained-doxing/