Features
What does the net know about you?
Do you know what the internet knows about you? Small pieces of personal information on millions of people are available on the web, and the amount of data is growing. This growth is all the faster thanks to the popularity of social-networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook. But who controls this data, and how much can other people find out about you?
Your personal details can end up on the web from a number of sources. Social-networking profiles, blogs, forum messages and shared personal photos all contribute to your online profile. You might even be mentioned in news articles or on your company's website.
Although you may voluntarily post most of this information, some snippets may be years out of date or embarrassingly inaccurate. If you, or your children, have grown up and are looking for a job, how would you feel if photos from your university days, or immature message board banter, were uncovered by a potential employer or a recruitment agent? You may not realise it, but people could be searching for your online details right now, digging up dirt before they've even met you.
Despite its popularity, Google is not the only choice for stalkers or private investigators. There has recently been a proliferation of people search sites that specialise in cataloguing links to people's web pages and online profiles, including Spock, Wink, ZoomInfo, Pipl, Squidwho and a private beta site called Whozat?. These sites mine popular websites such as Wikipedia, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube in order to
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These sites have a huge target market. They take advantage of people's curiosity and their natural desire to connect with each other.
Leads reunited
It wasn't long ago that people started to track down old school chums on Friends Reunited or began typing a prospective employee's name into Google. If you use Google to find someone's details, you'll get a range of mixed results that all contain the subject's name. People search sites, on the other hand, will conduct a semantic search, which means they'll inspect how the results work in context, placing an emphasis on extracting information from social-networking profiles, photos, Wikipedia entries, YouTube clips and other sites.
Anyone using these sites can discover an eerily accurate picture of people who are simply extroverts or public figures or, perhaps more likely, are blasé when it comes to publishing personal information on the web. The naïve could end up embarrassed. As Alex Bäcker, the founder and CEO of Whozat?, says, "When you're searching for a mate, you'd hope the web doesn't know more about the person you are thinking of wedding than you do!"
Spock's co-founder Jay Bhatti claims to receive feedback every week, particularly from UK recruiters, praising him on the accuracy and helpfulness of the search results. "They know they'll get an unbiased view about the person wherever he is on the web, any web document he's in, any social networks he's on, any blogs he might have written." That's good for the recruiters, but it might not be good for you.
However, unlike the slew of results that can appear on Google, you control the results that turn up on most people search sites, particularly at Whozat?, Spock and Wink. For instance, by creating a personal profile on Spock, you can add a short biography, upload some more flattering photographs and tailor the search results that are listed under your name. "You can log in and update information about yourself to Spock, so that people have a more representative view," Bhatti explains.
