Wrong! At least according to a new study from the Pew Research Center. The D.C.-based think tank surveyed 2,225 US adults on their internet usage, social networking habits and social life, and found some surprising correlations between the three. In short: social networkers have more friends than I do! (Need to start Tweeting more, I guess. By the way-are you following us on Twitter yet?)

Pew polled three types of people: those active on social networks, those who are online but not on a social network, and those who do not use the Internet. The study not only found that twice as many people are on social networks than there were three years ago (almost half of the total amount surveyed), but that these Internet-savvy folks are no longer basement-dwelling loners of yore – they are, in the words of Cosmo Kramer (in a slightly different context), out there and loving every minute of it!

Respondents with profiles on social networks, for example, on average reported having 2.45 "close" friends, while offline respondents averaged 1.75. Having a few close friend is one thing, but what about plain ol’ acquaintances? Do those of us on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn know more people? Well, yes we do, in fact: almost two hundred more on average. (Casey Johnson over at Ars Technica has a nice write-up about the study.)

One should be always be cautious in drawing too many conclusions from a study like this – surveys are necessarily provisional and limited in scope, and correlation is not causation. Still, it’s perfectly logical to think that social networking may be encouraging some of us to step out of our shells. Websites like Facebook and Twitter make it easy to communicate with people you’d probably never think to reach out to otherwise, and considering the amount of time we all are spending online, it’s no surprise that many of us are building closer friendships and larger networks of contacts. No longer is the Internet just a land of make-believe (although it certainly can be!) – the Internet is one place where we are living our lives. This is something of which we at Spokeo are very cognizant. As I wrote in my last blog,  Spokeo works hard to integrate different strands of data (i.e. information from Name Search, Email Search, Phone Search and Username Search) into a more fully-formed whole. We are the only People Search site that understands that our "online identity" is more and more a part of our "real" identity. As the Pew study shows, it’s getting a lot more tricky to draw a distinction between social life online and off – they’re merging into one.

As mentioned in our previous blog, Spokeo has been a sizzling hot news topic recently. I’m sure you’ve all seen the warning messages about Spokeo that you’re supposed to repost to your friends on your Facebook and Twitter accounts, or heard about Spokeo from your local news stations. To help clear up any confusion and dispel some of the rumors and myths going around, we would like to reiterate some facts about Spokeo – get the low down from the source.

We recognize that for some users it can be a startling experience to encounter a block of personalized information which they may otherwise be unaware exists – particularly when the information is of a type they may perceive as “private.”  It is important to understand, however, that Spokeo does not generate any data, nor is it the source.  We simply aggregate public records already published across the Internet and other venues, many of which have been in existence for a very long time, and act as a search engine like Google.

To shed light on some common misconceptions, Spokeo does not possess Social-Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, bank accounts, or other private financial information, such as credit scores. We are not a credit reporting agency. Further, since individual profiles are only as accurate as the published information they are comprised of, we continue to remind users that any information on our site is not guaranteed for accuracy and therefore should be regarded as a reference only, as stated in our disclaimers. That being said, we are actively working on improving the accuracy of the data, and will keep you posted with new developments.

Although the number of opt-out requests is only a small percentage of our total usage, we very much value all user input, and remain highly sensitive to any concerns some may have regarding their privacy. It is noteworthy that few search engines offer a full opt-out feature, or if they do, make it remotely as easy to use. The small percentage that do offer this option frequently employ lengthy and demanding authentication processes, often requiring one to submit hard copies of driver’s licenses, social security numbers, or other forms of identity via fax or mail. At present a user can opt out of their listing and remove it from Spokeo with only a few clicks of a mouse through an email verification process. (Click here for full instructions on how to opt out.)

Some people want to know why we require an e-mail, and speculate about whether it is for purposes of collecting more information. It is not. The reason Spokeo requires an e-mail to opt out is for the same reason that many other websites do – to authenticate that the request is in fact coming from a person and not a spambot – a malicious program that could otherwise wipe out the entire data base. 

I didn’t post any information in this blog that we haven’t already stated, but please use it as a reminder and base for debunking any Spokeo myths. Spokeo not only remains a great people-search engine, but it provides valuable insight into what types of public information are published about an individual, and presents a great way to monitor one’s own virtual identity as well. To learn more about Spokeo and privacy, please refer to Spokeo’s Privacy Policy page.

If you have any additional questions about Spokeo, check out our Help pages, or send us an email. Our traffic remains extremely high and may cause our site to run slowly, so please be patient as we work on improving this. We are also working on responding to all of your emails, and greatly appreciate your patience as our small team works on doing so.

2011 is here, and we would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year!

2010 has been a breakout year for Spokeo. In February 2010, we launched the groundbreaking Spokeo 4.0 with the new name search and reverse phone lookup technologies. In April and May 2010, we landed onto all the mainstream newspapers, magazines, TV stations, and radio programs. A mere 6 months later, we released Spokeo 5.0, which addresses many of  version 4.0′s shortcomings. Our traffic grew more than 3 times in 2010, propelling us to become an important  player in the people search market. The sudden surge in popularity caught us a little off-guard in the beginning, but we’ve learned our lessons and are more prepared than ever to tackle the next challenges.

2011 will be another exciting year. We launched username search a couple days ago, and tens of thousands of people have already used it. We plan to launch more never-before-seen technologies in the next few months, so stay tuned!

Once again, Happy New Year from the Spokeo team. Be safe and have fun!

_________________

Some other ways you can use Spokeo for the holidays besides traditional people searches include:

• ___Finding the addresses of family and friends for your Christmas cards
• ___Searching for friends and family to get an idea of their likes and interests for your Christmas shopping

There are three ways to search on Spokeo:

1.    Name search (e.g. John Smith)
2.    Email search (e.g. johnsmith@gmail.com)
3.    Phone search (e.g.  (123) 456-7890)

I believe that Christmas miracles really can happen, so please feel free to share any special stories you have about using Spokeo. Whether you found your long, lost identical twin or bought the most legendary Christmas gift after searching on Spokeo, we want to know!

"Jaron Zepel Lanier (born May 3, 1960) pronounced /ˈdʒɛrɨn lɨˈnir/ is an American computer scientist, composer, visual artist, and author. He made an experimental film in the past, but does not consider himself a filmmaker. In the early 1980s he popularized the term "Virtual Reality" (VR) for a field in which he was a pioneer. At that time, he founded VPL Research, the first company to sell VR products. His current appointments include Interdisciplinary Scholar-in-Residence, CET, UC Berkeley. In 2010, he was named to the TIME 100 list of most influential people."

I’ve copied this information about Jaron Lanier from his entry on Wikipedia, which is exactly what Jaron Lanier would not want me to have done. This is not to say that anything written in the above paragraph is incorrect: much of the entry seems to have been lifted from his personal website (which, surprisingly for a renowned computer scientist, resembles a poorly designed Geocities personal page from the mid 90s, but that’s another story). Lanier’s problem with Wikipedia has more to do with what it represents: "a resurgence of the idea that the collective is all-wise, that it is desirable to have influence concentrated in a bottleneck that can channel the collective with the most verity and force."
 
While the seemingly democratic, communal nature of Wikipedia is typically what garners praise for the online encyclopedia, Lanier sees possible dangers in the making knowledge "open-sourced." For one, Wikipedia’s use of "anonymous," collectively edited material might give the website an undeserved aura of authority, as if that article you are reading about Lady Gaga fell from the heavens. As Lanier wrote in an infamous 2006 piece for Edge magazine intriguingly titled "Digital Maoism," "Reading a Wikipedia entry is like reading the bible closely. There are faint traces of the voices of various anonymous authors and editors, though it is impossible to be sure." Wikipedia certainly has become Generation Y’s holy writ and go-to source for quick info, a status that has been reinforced by its omnipresence on Google: Type in just about any topic and you can be sure that the Wikipedia entry will be there on the first page, if not the first result ("a way [for search engines] to be lazy," Lanier posits).
 
Lanier’s bigger fear is that sites like Wikipedia effectively kill the individual voice with all its attendant idiosyncrasies. The anonymous, bloodless tone of many articles on Wikipedia works well for certain subjects (such as science, where Lanier admits that Wiki often excels), and not so well for other, more messy subjects. Say I want to learn about the Vietnam War, not only the facts and dates but perspectives on the conflict. In the past we would go to the library and read books by authors with biographies and points of view. Now we read the Wikipedia article, which describes this immensely complex and epochal event in the same manner it describes the Renaissance/Baroque ancestor of the trombone known as the Sackbut (stop giggling), blueberries and Chewbacca’s home planet of Kashyyyk. Are we not sacrificing context and subjective voice for speed and convenience?
 
Lanier’s fear of encroaching "online collectivism" is part of a larger set of grievances with what is known as "Web 2.0," the ever-growing rash of mega-aggregators, social networks, wikis, media/file-sharing websites that give (or give the illusion of) user-control to generate content and interact, often anonymously, in a community. Lanier has compiled his grievances in a new, book-length manifesto entitled "You Are Not a Gadget". The book is sure to ruffle the feathers of some of Lanier’s colleagues, but it provides ample food for thought. I myself have my doubts about some of Lanier’s propositions and arguments, which often veer into suspiciously New Age-y waters, particularly when he talks about "personhood." (Lanier himself is a sort of hippy: a 300 lb bear of a man with waist length dreadlocks who is equally at home with an iPhone and a pan flute.) Lanier’s critique of Wikipedia too, seems dangerously exaggerated at times, especially in regard to how it is used. Most users intelligent enough to work a mouse know that Wikipedia is not the final word on anything. Wiki, like other Web 2.0 databases such as Google Books (which got me through college!) and, yes, Spokeo, is above all a reference, an immensely helpful tool that uses sophisticated technology to provide information. The strength of the tool not only lies in its user-friendly design but in the fact that it is always a work in progress. As technology and the web continue to evolve it is important to have voices like Lanier (a web pioneer) telling us where we went wrong, and more importantly, how we can improve. Web services like ours evolve together with the user and respond to feedback, positive and negative by adapting. Wikipedia entries can be edited, Facebook user controls can be tweaked to fit user needs, Spokeo’s data accuracy can be continually improved. That’s the precisely the advantage of Web 2.0.

Today a new reality is slowly emerging which could hardly be anticipated when Spokeo first began.  All of us – innovators and users alike – are slowly becoming aware that aggregating multiple public profiles and consolidating them into one seems to give birth to yet a whole new identity heretofore unrecognized. This is, in essence, the new gestalt of virtual identity – an identity that is sometimes greater than the sum of its parts. Some find this “new” identity disturbing, while – happily – many more do not.  They recognize that it is simply a natural corollary of the information age and people-search aggregation.

The Web is becoming more open and connected with each passing day.  In the late 90s, posting photos online was almost inconceivable. Today it is the norm.  A few years ago, sharing what you were doing or where you were in real time was unimaginable. Today services like Twitter and Foursquare are all the rage.  These cultural changes have new privacy implications, and technologies like Spokeo are helping to reveal and shape new norms.

We’ve been listening to people’s feedback closely, and have been implementing many changes, even amidst the big technical challenges we have faced from the sudden traffic surge to our site. Spokeo has declared its ground-breaking objective to be the first data aggregator ever to offer users some measure of control over the public information that is published about them. We are now working feverishly to deliver upon that objective, and hope to unveil our new privacy controls within the year.  

Many have heard our pioneering message, and are waiting expectantly to see what we can achieve.  Others remain at odds with the existence of people search as a whole, and would rather we simply disappear. We are not politicians, nor philosophers. We are just engineers.  The truth is, we do not spend a lot of time discussing problems. We prefer a hands-on approach to solving them.  While it’s impossible to make everyone happy, one thing I do promise:  We intend to keep trying our very best.  Thanks to all of our loyal users for your patience. The best is yet to come.

Harrison Tang, President

Throughout this maelstrom, however, we somehow managed to resist the temptation to dive into the fray. While the impulse to defend ourselves and shed light on the many half-truths was compelling, we did not wish to engage in any caustic back-and-forths, or verbal skirmishes. It is simply not what we are about. Instead we decided to concentrate our energies on what we are about – namely creativity and development.  

Spokeo’s chief aim was, and remains, to create great products. Simply put, our heart is in innovation. We are committed to cutting-edge design and ingenuity, and recognize that developing great products entails healthy and sometimes vigorous debate. We pay close attention to any feedback we receive, good or bad, because we know that doing so stimulates great ideas. And indeed, in many ways our willingness to integrate and respond to criticism is what has shaped and molded our products into what they are today.  Now that some of the recent controversy has quieted down, however, I would like to take this opportunity to reflect upon everything that has transpired in recent months, and present another side of the story as well.  

I think most hi-tech innovators would agree that every new technology suffers labor pains. New products undergo many metamorphoses and lifecycles, and frequently endure multiple phases of adjustment and fine-tuning before they assume their true form.  Spokeo is no different. Ours is a new data-aggregation technology. It has revolutionized the realm of people-search and made it what it is today. In 2006, we invented the concept of social-network aggregation.  In 2008, we popularized social-search technology, and today people search stands at a whole new level. But this kind of innovation does not come without a few challenges along the way.  

Spokeo has always strived to push and test the limits of technology, as is evident in our track record of innovation. Perhaps more important, however, we have also discovered that, sometimes when we test the limits of technology, we also test people and their threshold for change.

We are forever examining, reassessing, and fine tuning our products. While we in no way revel in controversy, we have come to accept it as an inevitable part of the innovation process.  Like any new-product innovator at the cutting edge, we make mistakes, and will inevitably continue to do so.  It is simply par for the course. We will also, on occasion, probably unintentionally upset some, while hopefully pleasing a great many more. No matter how controversial we may be, however, what we do promise is to continue to listen to all factions — fans and critics alike.

Harrison Tang, President

In its complaint CDT made some rather startling allegations that confounded both mainstream users and techies alike. In fact, most of us were simply left scratching our heads in bewilderment, exclaiming “Huh? Are these guys for real? How do they even come up with this stuff?”

Now, we should say that we believe wholeheartedly in a healthy exchange of ideas. In fact, we applaud advocacy and recognize that watchdogs play an important role in society. They are a necessary component that helps keep everyone in check. But, a healthy system of checks and balances is a bit different from a misleading and unjustified complaint filed with federal regulators that, for all intents and purposes, threatens to suck the life out of entrepreneurship, innovation, and free enterprise, wouldn’t you agree?

We understand that CDT is interested in protecting privacy.  And that’s not a bad thing.  In fact, we’re all for it. So long as it’s in sync with the twenty-first century. Still, we think that even when you have a cause that’s near and dear to your heart, it is important to dot your “i”s and cross your “t”s  before you go making damaging allegations – especially ones that we know to be untrue.

CDT’s complaint is, to put it mildly, royally off mark. To clarify just how off mark, let’s take a look at the basis of its claim: In its complaint CDT asserts that Spokeo violates the Fair Credit Reporting Act because Spokeo offers detailed “consumer profiles” and then encourages employers to use these profiles to evaluate potential hires. Further, they allege, Spokeo violates Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, because Spokeo guarantees credit and wealth assessments for “all” individuals – in particular, “information about the consumer’s mortgage, income, and investments” –  just for purposes of luring consumers to sign up for paid services, but then “never” delivers “any” of that information.

Spokeo offers detailed consumer profiles? That’s interesting. It sure comes as news to us. Last we checked, we were a search engine, not a credit bureau. OK, so let’s stop pussyfooting around and look at what’s really going on here. The reality is, CDT knows that to regulate Spokeo the way they would like to – in other words, to put us out of business — they must first meet certain threshold criteria that would make Spokeo subject to the Fair Credit Reporting Act.  First on that list is, they must establish that Spokeo generates consumer reports. Then they must show that Spokeo encourages employers to rely on those reports for hiring decisions. 

The problem they face meeting that threshold is twofold:  First, Spokeo simply does not generate consumer reports. Try as they may to repackage the data Spokeo aggregates, and re-characterize it as “consumer reports,” CDT simply cannot. Calling an orange a grapefruit still does not make it so, no matter how hard you try to make it look like one.

Spokeo does not aggregate any secure or private information such as Social-Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, bank accounts, or credit scores. Moreover, we do not draw conclusions about the public records we do aggregate. Any wealth indices displayed on our site are already published and obtainable. These are merely widespread marketing summaries of the ilk that advertisers have been relying upon for decades. Spokeo was and remains a search engine. Much like Google we simply aggregate already published, public records, many of which have been in existence for a very long time.

Second, Spokeo does not encourage employers to rely on any of the data we aggregate for any purpose, much less for purposes of making employment decisions.  Here, again, CDT’s complaint is baseless, and frankly, reckless.

A little history: Since our inception, there have been several iterations of the Spokeo product.  Spokeo 3 was strictly a social-network people-search product.  It performed people search across numerous social networks, and offered users a way to keep up with friends and contacts across those networks more efficiently. That version of the product included no additional, external published sources. Hence, if a human resources professional who was already using social networks like MySpace or Facebook to research an employee simply wanted to do so more quickly, Spokeo’s search engine simply provided them with a more efficient and perfectly legitimate mechanism by which to do so.

Since the introduction of Spokeo 4 in March 2010, which added other published-data sources and functions, to avoid the possibility of any misuse or confusion, Spokeo expressly ceased to promote its new product for any human resource purposes. At present, we in no way endorse or encourage such uses, nor do we plan to do so in the future.  Further, Spokeo repeatedly states across the site that any information it aggregates is only as accurate as the published information it is derived from, that the information cannot be guaranteed for accuracy, and should therefore only be used as a reference. Perhaps if CDT had bothered to research things more carefully before launching into its tirade, it would have realized that there were two distinct products with separate life cycles, and both Spokeo and taxpayers could have been spared the unnecessary cost of a frivolous complaint.

With regards to CDT’s second claim that Spokeo violates Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act because it guarantees credit and wealth assessments for “all” individuals, specifically “information about the consumer’s mortgage, income, and investments,” all just for purposes of luring consumers to sign up for paid services, and then “never” delivers “any” of that information — the claim is not only baseless, but frankly borders on the defamatory and libelous.  Again guys, how ‘bout next time before you go making such outlandish allegations you try some due diligence first?

Before anyone purchases any service Spokeo offers, Spokeo states in no uncertain terms that the information available “may” include…and then goes on to provide a full list of what the search may offer.  Spokeo never promises to provide all of the information in every search. It cannot because information is not static. It varies from person to person. People are different, and not every person has the same types or quantities of data published about them.

As for specific “information about mortgage, income, and investments” – those fields are offered as part of the business premium product only. Hence, a free search will not yield this information. Again, maybe if CDT had bothered to explore Spokeo’s product line more thoroughly, it would have noted this distinction. Once more, however, for the reason indicated above, even within the business premium package Spokeo can never guarantee that all of this information will come through in every search. Information will always vary among searches due to the varying availability of published records on any given individual.

It is noteworthy that as of the date of this writing, however, 89.8% of searches on the business premium product have yielded “estimated income.” Economic Health measures, offered as part of the regular premium product, yielded results in 65% of the searches, and Wealth Level fields yielded information in 69% of searches.  Given these statistics, how CDT arrived at “never” sure beats us.

More glaringly, CDT never bothers to mention that our paid products offer not only the potential for yielding more data, but provide extra search avenues as well. Under the premium product one can perform reverse e-mail search, phone search, and even upload a contact address book and follow friends across social networks. How CDT could ignore all of that and flagrantly claim that you get nothing for your money is beyond us. 

Fortunately, as evidenced by the millions of searches performed on Spokeo every month, it seems most users clearly disagree with CDT’s claims, and value our products and service.  We thank all of our users for their continued support and remain committed to improving upon, and developing even greater products in the future.

Because we’ve never seen anything like Spokeo before.  People are skeptical about new technologies that break existing perceptions.  When search engines came out in late 90′s, people were concerned about the ease in which others could discover their personal websites.  When social networks came out in 2002, people were hesitant to post their personal pictures online.  Every time  a new technology brings people closer together, new privacy implications emerge.

Spokeo aggregates publicly available information.  It’s not the "magic" that some people believe it is, but rather, it’s just an aggregation technology that organizes scattered public information in a way that has never been done before.  Many people believe in a concept called "privacy by obscurity", which argues that public information is private if you don’t know how to find it.  This concept is flawed, however, because the fact you, yourself don’t know how to find such information does not mean that other people are equally clueless.  What Spokeo does is something that many marketing and investigative firms have done for years and years, so this information has been available for quite some time, just without your knowledge!  Spokeo automates the traditionally laborious data aggregation and analysis, making information available to everyone

Spokeo respects your privacy, and we want to make it easy for you to opt-out of Spokeo search results at any time.  If you don’t feel comfortable about your information on Spokeo, you can go to our Privacy page to opt-out right away.  Please note that to prevent abuse, we have implemented several algorithmic checks to make sure that you are only opting out yourself – not our entire database.  Also note that opting out of Spokeo does not remove your public information on other websites.  If you encounter problems, please email privacy[AT]spokeo[DOT]com.

The current Spokeo 4.0 launched only a couple weeks ago, so we are still improving our site based on user input.  Recently we discovered that our abuse-prevention algorithm might be too restrictive, and now we are busy working on a solution to better meet people’s needs.  Building something new does not have the benefit of learning from others’ past experiences; as a result, it requires iterations after iterations of user feedback and adjustment.  We will not slack off though as we are committed to building the best people search engine ever.

We started Spokeo with the standard "Google AdSense" ad model.  We thought that if we’ve built something cool that people like, we would earn enough to cover our operations and someone would buy us out.  This sounds naive, but that’s what we were dreaming, and I bet that’s what every TechCrunch reader was thinking back in 2006.

The pursuit of user counts works fine if the ad CPM (cost per thousand impressions) stays at the 2005 level.  Back then, advertisers hadn’t figured out that user-generated content converts poorly into sales, so these advertisers paid more for the benefits of the doubt.  Take Google as an example.  Google paid MySpace $900 million dollars in 2006 to take care of MySpace’s ad inventory, and all Google got in return is the lesson that user-generated content doesn’t monetize.  Advertisers aren’t dumb, and they won’t pay for ads that don’t work forever.  CPM for user-generated content took a nose dive around 2007, and all Web 2.0 sites with ad-driven business models were affected.

Spokeo cannot escape this fallout.  We ran ads for 3 months in the beginning of 2008, and we quickly realized that even if we grow the traffic by 100 times, we still couldn’t cover our basic costs.  Facing the hard reality, we made one of the biggest business decisions by turning Spokeo into a premium service.  It’s a last-ditched effort to save our business, and we didn’t know what to expect.  Fortunately, there were many people who like Spokeo to pay a little to support us, and now we should be able to weather through this economic downturn. 

Here we would like to thank all of our users for supporting us, and we would continue to introduce new and innovative products in the near future.  We got something huge scheduled for January 2009 (big projects always take time), so stay tuned!