We’ve talked before about how to track someone down via the internet. We used Flowtown to find out which social networks a particular person is using. That’s valuable when researching an opposing party or hostile witness. We’ve also talked about Pipl for researching people. Both of these search engines beat Google when you’re searching for a particular person.
This weekend I stumbled across Spokeo which has apparently been around for a while. They aggregate content from phone books, social networks, marketing lists, and other public sources. You enter a name, phone number or email address and Spokeo goes to work. You’ll be presented with a list of people, sorted by state, and you’ll have to find the person you’re looking for.
There are some other similar services, but they charge a considerable fee for the info they provide. Spokeo lets you perform a search free, but you’ll have to join, and pay, if you want full access to their database.
I did a quick search on one of the lawyers in our firm. I quickly found her on Spokeo and learned her age, address, race, home value, age of house, number of residents of her home, interests (reading, healthy living), that she donates to causes, has a graduate degree, no children and that she’s a Leo. I also found some pictures of her, a list of her social networks and info on the demographics of her neighborhood. That was all without paying the small fee.
Spokeo is definitely worth bookmarking in your browser.
By Lee Rosen
Lee Rosen has practiced family law for more than twenty years. With four offices, 