Is privacy a thing of past? How would you feel if your personal information like your address, your phone numbers(even unlisted/private phone numbers), even a photograph of your house is available to anyone in just a few clicks? I’d feel raped & I’m not exaggerating!!!!! Information like personal phone numbers & private eMails will definitely be abused if they no longer remain private & exclusive to a selected few to whom they were/are entrusted. 😕
Don’t know what I’m talking about? Or how it can happen? Well, just look at the new Search Engine on the block, ZabaSearch. It’ll open your Identity to All, says Wired. 😯 This search engine, which was launched sometime in February this year, lists out details like phone numbers, address, etc. & even a satellite photo of the address, a map to reach the place for any person you name. 😯 Good, I’d like personal mobile numbers of Salma Hayek & Diane Kruger & Jennifer Aniston. 😀
Really, the guys behind the search engine say that it just gathers information that’s freely available in public domain but I very much doubt it. This thing is possibly a bit more advanced than Yahoo! People Search. 😈
Currently this search engine can provide information only on people in USA. And this just is the beginning if I’m not wrong. In near future, information about every person alive/dead will be just a few clicks away, if some evil minds have their way. Now they’ll probably say that its about National Security & crime check etc., but you can bet your bottom dollar, its gonna be abused!! This just reminds me of a novel by Robert Ludlum, The Prometheus Deception, where the bad guys get an international treaty passed that allows them to have real-time satellite surveillance of any/every part of the planet they want & having it recorded & archived for later use. Now this may seem like a bit far fetched but who knows? Everything starts some where. A match stick is lit by a small spark & that same match stick can set a great fire going. Meaning small things leads to huge things. Maybe its not the right pun but its 3:15am & I feel sleepy, still, I think you might be getting my point!! 😕
http://www.Zabasearch.com (AKA peopledata.com, lists personal/private information such as street addresses, unlisted/listed phone numbers, birth year, maps how to get to your house, satellite photos of people’s homes, your family’s address/data, etc in USA) seems to be an invasion of mine and your privacy (it is definitely unethical to post peoples addresses and other personal data). I know that these are public records and that ZabbaSearch.com/DigPeople.com are not to blame (businesses and government are to blame for leaking this data), but people do not know that if you even simply register to vote or request to join the army/military in USA, you name/address/telephone are made public information (muti billion dollar industry selling our private info) without you having to sign a consent form or without asking permission! Even where you buy a domain name (lease actually, no single person actually owns a domain name, even Bill Gates does not own Microsoft.com), your address, name and telephone number are added to public records that anyone with an internet connection can retrieve this data to harrass you or even SPAM you (don’t forget that deranged cyberstalkers can find you now)! Other places Zaba get’s YOUR private data may be from county records, state records, court records, info becomes publicly available after you buy a new house, go to the post office and file for a change of address form, etc (data gets sold to info brokers on the open market)! I think all Americans should make a class action law suit against this type of crime which businesses and gov’t are doing!
Don’t be mad at ZabaSearch.com (just a beta now, wait until it is done and even better) for providing public data! Maybe Americans should not vote for presidents or give personal data to businesses!
Supposedly you can have your private data removed from the ZabaSearch database deleted by requesting it at info@zabasearch.com (but that does not mean your data is not posted somewhere else like DigPeople.com for example, also Zaba does not guarantee that your info will not be found later on as it will most likely fetch the data again automatically without human intervention).
BEWARE, more of these search engines with private data will be coming or are already here! Your fight for privacy is FUTILE! Even states that have laws against posting people’s home addresses are not able to stop this invasion of your privacies! Expect identity theft to rise and stalkers to stalk you (even famous people and politicians can be found)!
Similar Sites Showing Private Data:
http://people.yahoo.com
http://www.digpeople.com
http://www.ussearch.com
http://www.whois.sc (find domain name owner’s info)
Well, the thing about Domain Whois is that usually the info there(addresses,phones but emails for certain) is faked, or the people register domains via Proxy nowadays by paying a little additional fee per year. So its not much of a threat!!
But yes, you have a point about people putting a stop to this selling of info from government records like Post Office etc. I’m glad that the system isn’t that techy here, so the info isn’t sold like this here yet, but it will be some day in near future, its inevitable unless some action is taken against it to thwart it.
Hell, there’s a sort of marketing blacklist in US which allows people to not receive any tele-marketing calls etc. if their phone number on it. But there’s no such thing here & I get these kinda calls & SMS on my mobile all the time and what’s more disturbing is that the companies whom you have some business with, whom you trust to not abuse your info, well, they are the ones who abuse your privacy by calling & sending SMS all the time & they don’t stop even when you ask them to!! :curse:
I guess, I’ll have to start saving to get a secluded island where I can live without these idiots disturbing the peace of my life!! 😉
I spent all that time writing that and then you just delete my link to/with my name…
Why have an area to add a website (in the comment form) if no-one can use it?
Yes I did remove your link & I’ll do it again, commenting on this blog is not a means of increasing the rankings of your websites in the SERPs, and you should have noticed that your links are not linked directly & they are marked with the Google approved ‘no-follow’ relation.
And I don’t think that I need to tell you the intention with which you posted that link of yours & using what you have used as your name, just for getting your website better rankings in the SERPs.
But I value your comment & you have probably noticed that I haven’t edited or deleted it.
The field to add a website in the comment form is not meant for SEO purposes, its there so that if others want, they can visit the comment author’s website(usually a blog) provided that the comment author has one & has posted it as well.
You can see in the archives on other posts, the links of other people have been kept intact as they were not posted with the intention of SEO.