Spokeo

Spokeo is a people search engine that retrieves social networking data. Spokeo searches over 40 social networks including popular ones like MySpace and Bebo.Official Site: Learn More Unlike traditional people search websites that search one person at a time, Spokeo can search and retrieve content for hundreds of people at a time using an interface derived from IM chat clients. Spokeo identifies search targets by scanning users' email, address, or name. Spokeo has been featured on top magazines like Newsweek, Wall Street Journal and PC World.http://www.spokeo.com/blog/about/

Spokeo claims to be different from other search engines in the way it indexes information. The company's search engine is actually a search aggregator or a meta-search engine. Among the sites it references are social networks, phone books, census, marketing channels, newsletters, real estate data and corporate websites.http://www.spokeo.com/blog/about/ Spokeo charges a minimal fee for instant aggregated information that usually take a long time to gather.https://www.spokeo.com/purchase?q=Jane%20Smith&url=http://www.spokeo.com/search%3Fq%3Djane%2520smith%23Ashville,%20AL:105470017

Spokeo began in Harrison Tang's parents' basement in 2005. Tang was a student at Stanford University who was hooked to different social networks. To keep up with all his friends' social networking profiles hosted at various social networking sites, he teamed up with his friends to aggregate social networking information. The following year, they launched Spokeo on Techcrunch. Since then, Spokeo has expanded to cover phone books, marketing databases, business databases, web stores and other public sources of personal information.http://www.spokeo.com/blog/about/

Criticism over privacy rights has sparked controversy around Spokeo and other social network search engines. Critics contend that these services place a high amount of information, some of which people might prefer to keep under wraps, into easy access of the public. Those concerned about security can opt out of some programs, or simply do a search on sites like Spokeo to see what comes up under their name. They can then find and delete the information that they no longer wish to give easy access to the public.PC World: People Search Engines: Slam the Door... (March 10, 2009)

Spokeo is sometimes seen as a Google or Facebook competitor, but the search engine aggregator offers a related, but different service. While Google is the recognized leading in organizing information on web pages, Spokeo claims to be more comprehensive and focused on people-specific internet searches. While Facebook is focused on sharing people's personal data, Spokeo is focused on aggregating data from third-party sites.http://www.spokeo.com/blog/about/