Zabasearch.com is a website that searches for and collates disparate information regarding United States residents, including names, current and past addresses, phone numbers, and birth years, and then permits the user to query other search engines with this information to retrieve additional data, such as
satellite photos of addresses and criminal
background checks.
History
ZabaSearch was founded by Nick Matzorkis and Robert Zakari
The site claimed to have overtaken
Yahoo!
Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Man ...
People Search as the highest-trafficked people search engine in May 2005.
Zabasearch was acquired by Intelius in December 2008.
Description
The website allows free searches for certain information, but requests for further information are directed to
Intelius
Intelius, Inc. is a public records business headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It provides information services, including people and property search, background checks and reverse phone lookup. Users also have the ability to pe ...
.
Premium services, accessible by registering an email address and password at the site, or by signing in via
Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...
, allow users to run a free Zabasearch background check or to search by phone number. After a trial period, premium services are accessible via a monthly fee.
As ''
SFGate''s David Lazarus further discussed in 2005, regarding the site's free and paid services:
:''ZabaSearch buys and gives away basic personal data as a
loss leader
A loss leader (also leader) is a pricing strategy where a product is sold at a price below its market cost to stimulate other sales of more profitable goods or services. With this sales promotion/marketing strategy, a "leader" is any popular articl ...
to induce visitors to purchase more comprehensive background checks for $20 each.''
:The company charges $100 for additional in-depth searches, with a money-back guarantee if the person sought doesn't turn up.
:It also carries a paid link to
Experian
Experian is an American–Irish multinational data analytics and consumer credit reporting company. Experian collects and aggregates information on over 1 billion people and businesses including 235 million individual U.S. consumers and more t ...
, to obtain a free credit report. (This will automatically sign you up as well for Experian's credit-monitoring program, which will cost $9.95 a month unless you opt out after a 30-day trial period.)
The company asserts that all of the information accessible on the site was already extant on the Internet on many government or corporate databases, the likes of which could (usually) already be accessed piecemeal by the general public. As such, they assert that the site fosters nothing new except the convenience of gathering the data automatically and is not suited for use by potential
identity thieves.
In addition the site offers an email notification service to registered customers that informs them when they, or people they know, are being searched and who is searching their name or
social security number
In the United States, a Social Security number (SSN) is a nine-digit number issued to U.S. citizens, permanent residents, and temporary (working) residents under section 205(c)(2) of the Social Security Act, codified as . The number is issued to ...
.
Reception
Irene Davids' review at KillerStartups.com hinted at the site's usefulness for
stalking but skewed towards favorable, while Reviewopedia's balanced review of Zabasearch,
metatitled "Zabasearch - Legit or Scam?", even-handedly enumerates the site's pros and cons. As of April 5, 2014, the two articles posted in the "Related Articles" section, positioned immediately below the Zabasearch review, are both cautionary, "People Search Websites and What You Should Know", and "Protect Yourself from Online Identity Theft".
Email messages containing personal information that were previously not searchable by Google, Internet Explorer or Firefox became searchable sometime before June 2014, which many people may consider to be a violation of privacy. Zabasearch previously claimed to only share names and email addresses of users and information already published elsewhere, and not the text of personal messages.
However, numerous complaints about Zabasearch have been posted with various agencies - such as the
Federal Trade Commission
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is an independent agency of the United States government whose principal mission is the enforcement of civil (non-criminal) antitrust law and the promotion of consumer protection. The FTC shares jurisdiction ov ...
(FTC) regarding
Internet privacy, the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (PRC), and the California Office of Privacy Protection (COPP).
References
Further reading
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External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Zabasearch.Com
Online companies of the United States
Online person databases
Internet properties established in 2000