Online people search, how to find somebody on the Internet?

Searching services on the virtual space are one of the most (or maybe the only) heavily used and respectively the most paid phenomena in our modern cyber era. With a simple input of any word denoting the subject or the person you need in the searching line of any prominent Internet services you can practically always find the information you requested. While we can appreciate such instruments that allow us to quickly and easily dig up those precious facts we are looking for there is an inevitable dilemma that comes to the contradiction of the ubiquitous globalization and individual rights. Read about unique and helpful people search services that enable us to get in touch with those friends or relatives of ours with whom we happened to lose all connections, and our view on the ethical part of this issue.

In search of the best online search

Today there is a great deal of paid and free portals that provide a different kind of information you need about some individual. Paid services use special data bases they collected themselves or borrowed from other agencies authorized to keep this information. As for free portals these represent something in the nature of communities of people who voluntarily give out the information about themselves so as to encounter old acquaintances or classmates or to meet new persons interested in their biographical particulars. Among most popular free services are Facebook and MySpace.

Skimming through the Internet pages we revealed that most popular people search engines on the web are PeopleFinders and Intelius followed by USA People Search, USSearch, eFindOutTheTruth, Find a Friend and others. Here we will cover the first two and one more service used in the former Soviet countries known as Radarix.com.

PeopleFinders is an online company that can find people through electronic databases and public records. PeopleFinders also offers other related services, like background checks, criminal checks, sex offender searches and employee screening, but the companies real strengths lie in people searches. It is one of the largest owners of public records data in the United States, with billions of records that span the last 40 years.

PeopleFinders.com uses exclusive DataTsunamiTM matching logic to combine information from large databases, cross reference that data, and identify the right matches for a user.

PeopleFinders has several fee options for users. A one time search with the limited information list will cost you $1.95. In the report you will have the information on all the search results for your request. This information will only cover the following:

• Name, date of birth, relatives
• Address/phone
• Previous cities
• Average income/average home value

Those who want to use the service on a more long-term basis can subscribe for a Premium Membership of 24 hours, 7 days or a month. With the Premium membership, you gain unlimited access to use the: People Search, Reverse Phone Search, Property Search, Death Records Search, Marriage Records Search, and Divorce Records Search. Monthly membership fee is $19.95. But! The unlimited access does not imply unlimited background information per particular individual. This will include unlimited searching requests while the report will look like the one presented when you pay for a one time use.

A thorough report along with such options as Criminal Searches, Public Filings Reports, and Business Searches should be purchased separately and are provided only once on only one person. A Comprehensive Background report for a $39.95 fee covers these:

• Aliases & Maiden Names
• Birth Date
• Address History
• Phone Numbers
• Marriages & Divorces
• Relatives & neighbors
• Property ownership and many other items with many details

Intelius, Inc. is a United States corporation with headquarters in Bellevue, Washington specializing in public records information and offering service to consumers and businesses which include background checks and identity theft protection. Founded in 2003 with origins in Microsoft and InfoSpace and employing a staff of 113, Intelius is ranked as one of the top 100 electronic commerce sites on the Internet.

Like PeoleFinders Intelius provides several options to search and pay for reports. However, customers cannot subscribe for long-term memberships with the company. They are only allowed 24 hour unlimited use. A one time fee is also $1.95, but at the moment Intelius is offering a 51% discount and thus you can pay only $0.95 for the report with the features similar to those in a one time search request made at PeopleFinders.

A 24 hour pass is charged $19.95 which is the same with PeopleFinders. Here you are allowed to make unlimited search requests but the reports will be presented in the form of a one time request. As for detailed information on a peculiar person Intelius charges $49.9 for a one time report with a $10 discount.


Radarix.com is the youngest among the search services as long as it was introduced only this year. It provides a wide variety of data on residents and organizations in Russia, the Ukraine and other CIS countries. The data base of the agency includes 5,300 arrays of information both of federal and regional level, 5 to 6 billion entries with total volume of several TBytes. Unfortunately, Radarix cannot boast the same period coverage as it is the case with PeopleFinders. The information provided here covers only several recent years.

Radarix offers several fee schemes which are rather differing from those of its counterparts. Thus, you can subscribe for a $10, $20 (20% bonus), $50 (30% bonus), $100 (40% bonus) or $200 (50% bonus) plan. Each of the plans are not limited in time frame rather they are limited in a number of search requests. For instance, $10 will allow you to make 15-20 search requests, while 20$ you will spend for 40-50 searches, 50$ for 120-140 searches, 100$ for 300-330 searches. For a view of one result you will pay 1 point. When you register with $10 plan you are automatically credited 1000 points.

The search itself can be performed on different levels depending on the data you know about the person or organization you are looking for. You can search either by the name or by passport series and car number. Thus, the results will be presented according to the specified data.

Convenience and human rights

Certainly people search services are very helpful inasmuch as they give us the opportunity to find those dearest whom we may have lost due to unexpected circumstances and now we want to connect with them again. Surely, these services are a tempting chance. Yet, this chance can be misused by violators to injure those in the service databases.

According to Article 12 in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the UN on December 10, 1948, each person should be protected against interference with his privacy. Interestingly, these agencies offering you to find your friend or relative claim that they conclude an agreement with the users of their system that guarantees the proper disposal of the information, otherwise the search service will inform the appropriate law enforcement officials to persecute the violator. But, the violator can be detected only after he/she commits a crime, then what is the use in persecuting him/her after a person whose personal information is included into the data base of the searching service is harmed?

The Privacy Act of 1974 says: “No agency shall disclose any record which is contained in a system of records by any means of communication to any person, or to another agency, except pursuant to a written request by, or with the prior written consent of, the individual to whom the record pertains, unless disclosure of the record would be-- 

(1) to those officers and employees of the agency which maintains the record who have a need for the record in the performance of their duties; 

(2) required under section 552 of this title” The latter relates to organizations or persons authorized to use our personal data.

Well, what is the legislative basis for these agencies who sell private information of the citizens of the USA and other countries to others? In our times of technology progress these innovative tools can be used by anyone. Qualified fraudsters can pretend under any name of the fake relative and illegally seize our private data. Besides, who supplies these agencies with such details sometimes unknown even for close relatives?

While we can enjoy the easiness and speed of finding the person we lost we can think over the question “Am I not breaking someone’s privacy?”