Search Websites and privacy issues

According to Beijing, the United States, "the World daily" comprehensive report that the Chinese youth founder of the search site Spokeo, for each person to provide a special detailed personal information on the network, but the founder of the site Tongjingye (Harrison Tang) information should not be among them.

The 27-Year-old Tongjingye, a small international student from Taiwan, founded Spokeo when he studied at Stanford University in 2006, citing 80 sources, including social networking sites, databases and online catalogs, according to the Los Angeles Times report. As long as the reader enters his or her own name on the Spokeo website, you will know Spokeo's effectiveness.

"Each site is increasingly human-centric, and we are just consolidating existing data," Tongjingye said in an interview. He also pointed out that the site was relocated to Southern California in March this year, the updated version of the daily search of users increased to 1 million. At present, about 100,000 people registered to enjoy the full service, the cost is 14.85 yuan per three months, an annual fee of 35.40 yuan.

A free character search in Spokeo may identify the street name, telephone number, and ethnicity, occupation, education, hobbies, and relationships of a person's residence. Paid users get an exact address and other more detailed data.

The privacy watchdog group points out that Spokeo provides more detailed data than all other sites. "We receive complaints from people about the Rainey website every day," said Rights Reitman, a spokesman for the Privacy Rights Information Centre (Privacy Clearinghouse). People were surprised by the site's search for personal data that could be displayed, and felt that privacy had been violated. ”

However, the service provided by Spokeo is not illegal, although it makes people feel that privacy is violated. Tongjingye points out that Spokeo also allows people to opt out of the search for the site, simply by providing email and confirming that the mailbox is still in operation.

Tongjingye stressed that the Spokeo website does not represent an increase in the threat of public privacy. But Tongjingye, who has received many emails and threats, has chosen not to include the site's search, as his colleagues and lawyers have suggested.