What do you think about ZabaSearch's new blog?

As a female I have always taken great pains to insure that my address never be published in the phone book to protect myself. Now somehow this Zabasearch has published this info for all to see.

I would like to know how they got it legally since it is not available to the public.

My info, as well as that of others that I know, is at least 4-5 years old. Granted, if someone has lived in the same house, in the same city, and had the same phone number for forever, then it might be correct, but, you can look that up in any phone book.

I don't need a blogger to do that. I can publish the same by spamming mailing lists and newsgroups - and many do.

Doug.

When I searched myself, I saw my name connected to every address I've had for the past 10 years. It also listed one of my addresses as my brother's old one (where I never lived) and my birth year as my dad's. ??? Maybe it's too inaccurate to be really relevant? At least for me?

Firstly, I am curious to know why the hyperlink to Zabasearch in the article by Elsa Wenzel doesn't just simply link to ''http://zabasearch.com/'', which is the full and proper url. Instead, the hyperlink's target url is deliberately created on that CNet page as:

http://dw.com.com/redir?destUrl=http://zabasearch.com/&siteId=7&oId=4531-10921_7-6307352&ontId=10921&tag=blog

Why? Ratings?

Go first to http://zabasearch.com/#first, and read the intro.
Now click the link ''Why ZabaSearch is Legal'' (http://zabasearch.com/fl_re.php), and you will see that Anita Ramasastry (an associate professor of law and a director of the Shidler Center for Law, Commerce, & Technology at the University of Washington School of Law in Seattle, Washington) discusses in detail whether Zabasearch is acting unlawfully.

In particular, note her quote from the ''Intro'' I mentioned above:

''ZabaSearch does not gather or generate information. ZabaSearch quickly accesses public information and displays what is available in the public domain''.

She then poses the question: ''Where does the government keep our data?'', which brings me to my point.

Citizens of the wonderful USA are very proud of their ''Right to bear arms'', and then wonder why there are so many gun murders in their country. When you can walk into a store like WalMart and buy a gun, then I would say that the American public only have themselves to blame for the gun culture they created.

In the UK, you have to be a really hard criminal to even get your hands on a "piece"

In demanding ''Freedom of Speech and Information'' for all United States citizens, don't they realise that the Internet is fast becoming a way, for those finding it necessary to make that information available, to publish it?

Here in the UK we have what is known as the ''Data Protection Act'' which enforces any group, company, or individual storing personal data to comply with some very simple provisions:

1. The data is CURRENT
2. It is ACCURATE
3. It is stored for a justifiable and legitimate purpose
4. It is not stored for longer than is necessary for the purpose at 3 (much the same as "current")
5. All reasonable steps are taken to ensure the safekeeping of the data.

Any person or company can contact the ''Data Protection Registrar'' to:

1. Ask for details of specific data held about them
2. Demand that it is removed from the respective records or ammended.

This is on payment of a fee, and an individual can only ask for their own records. The scope is narrow, and the individual has to specify where they think that personal data is stored, or who is storing it.

The ''Registrar'' has great powers, and non-compliance with the provisions for data storage are treated at a very high legal level.

Government agencies are not exempt, and all have to show a very good reason for allowing peoples' personal details to become accessible outwith a secured Intranet, and so end up being indexed by a Search Engine.

In America, I can do a reverse lookup on a telephone number to ascertain who it is registered to. That's disgraceful, and wide open to criminal use, but is something clearly brought on by all these statutory ''rights'' that have been given to US citizens. No sorry, they weren't "given", they were fought for. In the UK, you have to first know someone's Name, Street of residence, and Number on that street to obtain a telephone number through directory enquiries.

The ''Voter's Roll'' is now freely available to individuals in public Libraries, whereas it previously was only made available on payment of a fee and by signing a register. It is now distributed as a retail CD to companies compiling mailing lists and, although it is arranged by Town, Street, and Number rather than by peoples' names, it is searcheable and I think this is a step backwards where the UK is in danger of becoming too free with individuals' personal data.

I don't know if wearing of seatbelts in cars is now mandatory in the USA, but the whole attitude of ''Nobody can force me to wear it - it's my constitutional right not to wear it'' came to the fore when vehicle manufacturers began designing Air Bags to make travel safer. Because so many American drivers took the attitude that they wouldn't be forced to wear seatbelts, the designers had a very difficult job getting the design correct. They had to make them more powerful to protect the pig-headed non-seatbelt-wearers, but not so powerful that the explosion blew their heads off or propelled pieces of plastic half way into their stubborn skulls.

So, in summation, my personal opinion is that Americans' insistance on observing their ''constitutional rights'' (no matter how silly the decision) has supplied the source for an enterprise such as Zabasearch to work.

Anita Ramasastry (the highly qualified professor of law mentioned earlier) fully agrees with me when she states:

''...the First Amendment protects a person's right to speak and publish information..... So while privacy rights don't help those who find themselves the subject of digital dossiers, free speech rights do help the dossier-makers''.

Go back to http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20050512.html and read downwards from the section header ''The First Amendment Allows Publication Even of Some Dangerous Information''.

That's MY two-cents worth, and I hope I haven't offended anyone

Hi: this is an abomination! first and foremost it is an invasion of privacy.secondly,i am a divorced older
man and forunately(unfortunately?) i do not look my age.i am taken for 15 years younger. zabasearch will
cramp my style and cause untold amounts of damage,
(loss of female affection). cease and desist! i have written zaba for deletion of my name.

IT HELPS

Like there are'nt enough ways to invade someone's privacy already!It's just another way for someone to keep up with you,even if you don't want them to!

change my age to right one. I was born in 1953 but not in 1946. You did make me 7 years older!!!! I'M DISAPOINTED WITH YOUR SERVICE!
My contact information:
MARINA PTASHINSKI( I DID CHANGE THE ENDING OF MY LAST NAME)
15710 EL ESTADO DR 126
DALLAS, TX 75248

I WAS BORN IN MINSK, BELARUS 03/08/1953.
MY PHONE # 972-720-9900
My email mptash2002@yahoo.com

Who uses ZabaSearch?

26% Consumer
23% Business
20% Government Agencies/Courts/Law Enforcement
14% Universities/Students
12% Military Personnel
3% Law Firms/Attorneys
2% Media/News Agencies
Where does ZabaSearch find the information?

ZabaSearch does not gather or generate information. ZabaSearch quickly accesses public information and displays what is available in the public domain. Many people assume ZabaSearch controls the information found in ZabaSearch results pages. However, ZabaSearch simply serves as a search engine in locating available public records and does not create the records found. Information typically makes it to the public domain via a wide variety of sources, including but not limited to: phone listings, court records, real property records, subscriptions etc. Sources vary state by state and region by region. Unlike ZabaSearch, there are many companies who do gather, generate, compile, house and sell public information, most of which are publicly traded. This practice is, and always has been, legal in the United States and is the basis for the 2 billion dollar U.S. information industry.

What can I do to prevent my information from becoming so widely available?

If you care to make the effort, there are steps that can be taken to better conceal information available about you in many public record databases. Many things can be done quickly and inexpensively, other methods can be more costly and time consuming.

It is important to note that it is virtually impossible to completely remove information available about yourself from public record. Some public information can be controlled. Some cannot be. For example, real property transactions and most court records will always be part of the public domain.

Efforts made in this regard help to greatly contain and manage your information as you like, but no method can ever guarantee certain removal of all records.

Here are five very effective means of controlling information about yourself in the public domain:

1) Open a P.O. Box for your personal correspondence and bills. Submit a change of address form at your local post office, forwarding your mail to your new post office box. This is the single most effective and inexpensive thing you can do to quickly remove your current address from a majority of public record databases.

after 20 years the new modern version of KGB a life again,can't get easyer then the cyber way...
let freedom ring, way to go....

Zabasearch is great for finding people, but the amount of information on me is more than I like. So I have mixed feelings about it. I don't think they would need to post birthdates. That I think is an invasion of privacy. The public information about address and phone number is ok. One can get that from other people searches. That one has to write in to remove one's name needs to be changed to an email request.

i would ditto Snopes:

A Wired interview with Zabasearch's president and chairman confirmed that the information Zabasearch provides is compiled from sources that are already publicly accessible:
Q: Where does the data on ZabaSearch come from?

A: The public domain. Information collected by the government, and information that individuals put it out into the public domain. Court records, county records, state records, information that becomes publicly available after you buy a new house or go to the post office and file a change-of-address form.

When you move and fill out a change form with the post office, they record date of move and new address, then sell that to info brokers on the open market. When you apply for a credit card, and you don't check the box saying you don't want your information shared, it will be sold.

ZabaSearch does not maintain a database. It is a search engine, which queries third-party public information databases


.

Zabasearch is nothing more than a search engine (although I haven't checked out the new blog service--but that doesn't seem to be what people are ocmplaining about anyway). Getting mad at them is like getting mad at Google because of a web page you don't like.

Even if you have Zabasearch remove you from their database the same information is still available about you from myriad other sources. If you don't want that information available you need to attack it from the original source. It's been a while since I've used Zabasearch so I don't remember if it is easy to tell where they get their information from. If it's not, it would be nice if the service would make that clear and provide brief instructions when appropriate how to have that information removed at the source.

Unfortunately much of this information is part of the public record (real estate transactions etc.) The information has always been available but the Internet makes it easier for the average Joe to find it. If it really bothers you campaign for stronger state and national privacy laws. I think your indignation with Zabasearch is misplaced.