Have you ever innocently needed to find out more information about someone? Perhaps you have lost the ability to get in touch with an old friend and want to rekindle the friendship. Maybe you want to know if someone is related to someone you know. Whatever the reason, the vast amount of information on the World Wide Web can certainly help.
Sure, you can search Facebook for mixed results, but you're better off using a people search engine. These search engines are designed to gather available information about Internet users and deliver it to a convenient results page. All you need to get started is a name and location or username.
PeekYou provides one of the most comprehensive people search results on the web. To find someone, just enter their first and last name as well as their relative position. If you don't have this information, you can also enter any social network username you may have or a full phone number.
When you search, you can browse the results to see if you find a match. PeekYou provides the person's age, relative location, and links to social media accounts like Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. It also shows some small images from various sources.
If you want to dig even deeper for information, you'll either have to pay or provide the person's contact information to verify that you're actually friendly. Personal addresses, e-mail addresses and telephone numbers are censored for privacy reasons. Background checks integrate with third-party services like Instant Checkmate and also require payment to access.
Pipl is another service very similar to PeekYou. It's not as intrusive as PeekYou, which I think is a good thing, although if you dig deep enough it can get there. Pipl focuses more on finding the presence of people on the web. If you get a match, the service will link to social networks, extract photos (public only) and also provide other information.
Pipl is great for employers trying to research potential hires. The results page highlights the person's LinkedIn profile and lists career information and other people that person might be associated with. It's an easy way to see how people present themselves online.
Like PeekYou, Pipl also works with third-party services like Archives to find recordings, background reports, and other sensitive information, but again, this comes at a cost.
Prophet is actually a Google Chrome extension and works differently than the two aforementioned services. It's on the Chrome toolbar and only activates when you're viewing a social media profile like Twitter, Google+, or LinkedIn. When this is the case, Prophet will display contact information about the person behind the account as well as links to social media and websites elsewhere.
You can also get contact information such as phone numbers and email addresses with Prophet, which uses an algorithm and verification feature to predict, but none of these work for all services. You can also email directly with Prophet, but you need email credits, which can be acquired by adding data to Prophet's community.
Note: Since Prophet is technically open source (and in beta), its reliability and accuracy may not be on par with Pipl and PeekYou.ALSO SEE: How to Find and Delete the Personal Data Google Has About You
