Cyber-Stalking for Dummies

Three sites for checking your stalkability

We journalists love that more and more public records are being made available online. It makes our jobs much easier. Instead of heading down to government offices, we can hop online to search property records, court files, tax assessments,  etc.

Fortunately for those unnerved by this, lots of these government databases are hopelessly clunky. Clunky enough to discourage the casual lurker.

However, there are sites that make cyber-stalking easy. If you’re looking to dig up dirt on someone (or, if you want to get a sense of what’s out there that’s easily dug up on you), check out my top three recommendations for free websites for amateur stalkers sleuths.

1. Pipl.com – “The People Search” – This is probably the best database out there. Techcrunch has an article describing it and how it works. Here’s an excerpt:

It produces not only links to all of your profiles on social networks like Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn, blog mentions, and photos on Flickr. It finds mentions of your name in public records, including property records, SEC filings, and birth databases. It also finds e-mail addresses and summarizes “quick facts” about the person.

via Pipl.com: People Search Engine So Good, It Will Scare Your Pants Off.

The big reveal in my Pipl search is that I’m from Sarasota. So chances are good that I may just know your grandmother. (In my experience, the grandparents of 50% of people I meet retired to SRQ.)

2. WhoIs.net – “The Domain Name Search” — Remember when you registered your website, and the representative at GoDaddy asked if you wanted to pay a little extra to keep your registration details private?  And you thought you’d rather keep that $5 per month (or whatever the cost was) for happy hour? Well, here’s the place people can go to find the name and address behind your website. Drink to that this month.

3. ZabaSearch.com – “Free People Search Engine” — It’s White Pages on steroids. (The reverse phone number search is a tease though — you have to pay up for that premium service.)

I would just like to note that I don’t endorse cyber-stalking. I do endorse knowing how exposed you are online, so I recommend searching yourself on these databases. “The more you know, the more you grow” and all that jazz.

And it’s a good opportunity to start thinking about creating your own websites and profiles in order to take control of your online narrative. These days, controlling the results in your Google search (or the ones on these databases) is the equivalent to making wardrobe decisions to determine how you’re perceived.