Spokeo
 |
|
| Type of business | Private company |
|---|---|
|
Type of site
|
People Search Engine |
| Available in | English |
| Founded | Mountain View, California, USA (2006) |
| Headquarters | Pasadena, California, USA |
| Founder(s) | Mike Daly, Harrison Tang, Ray Chen, and Eric Liang |
| Key people | Harrison Tang (CEO) |
| Industry | Software |
| Products | Spokeo |
| Revenue | $57 million (2014) |
| Website | spokeo.com |
| Alexa rank |
 2,674 (September 2015[update]) |
| Registration | Subscription required for most uses |
| Users | 18 million (2015) |
| Launched | 11/5/2006 |
Spokeo is a people search website that aggregates data from online and offline sources.
Spokeo was founded in 2006 by a group of people who graduated from Stanford University—Mike Daly, Harrison Tang, Ray Chen, and Eric Liang. The original idea came from Tang, who found it difficult to keep up with all the different posts his friends made across various social networks. The four founders developed the idea in early 2006, using Tang's parent's basement. In November 2006 the site officially launched, after attracting an initial round of angel investment in the "low hundreds of thousands" according to co-founder Ray Chen.
The site has evolved to become an information-gathering website that offers various options for finding information about people. It purports to know, among other things, your income, religion, spouse's name, credit status, the number of people in your household, a satellite shot of your house and its estimated value. The company's revenues for 2014 were $57 million, and as of 2015, the site had 18 million users.
Spokeo utilizes deep web crawlers to aggregate data. Searches can be made for a name, email, phone number, username or address. The site allows users to remove information about themselves through an "opt-out" process. Spokeo aggregates information from public records and does not do original research into personal data. It aggregates marketing data approximations into the data it finds from social media and online registry sites. The company gives users access to 12 billion public records.
Larry Ponemon has raised concerns about the general practice of gathering personal data and the potential for identity theft. When Spokeo released version 4 of its website, KGPE-TV aired a piece on Spokeo outlining local law enforcement agencies' concerns that the site would enable cyberstalking. They reported that credit information was being included in some online profiles and that Spokeo had a feature that provided photos of private residences. Search results on Spokeo offered to provide a "credit estimate" and "wealth level" information, as well as information about a target's mortgage value, estimated income, and investments. Spokeo CEO Harrison Tang has said that credit information is not actually available through Spokeo.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) fined Spokeo $800,000 for marketing information to human resource departments for employment screening without adhering to consumer protection provided by the FCRA—the first FTC fine involving personal data collected online and sold to potential employers. Under the settlement, in addition to the $800,000 fine for Spokeo’s FCRA and FTC violations, Spokeo is required to submit compliance reports to the FTC for twenty years.
...
Wikipedia