©05 The Media Desk
see main Urban Legend Page
for Public Domain Info
Ahhh.... another panic warning about how terrible the Web is. The implication is that just ANYBODY can look up EVERYTHING about you. Well. Fear not. The Desk is here to tell you that if anybody important wanted to know everything about you... they've already got the information or know how to get it and they won't use a web search engine like Zabasearch® in the first place.
And now some observations and a few facts.
The information provided through this site is basically Public Information which is available through any number of sources including Peoplefinder and the old Finger/whois service through the Usenet. As Zabasearch points out on their information page:
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.
http://www.zabasearch.com/about_us.php
Some services charge more, others less. All of it is Legal since the information provided is considered Public. And what's even better- Some of the information that has been available on the web for years without paying anybody includes:
Birth and Death records and genealogy information. Property Transfers. Voter Registration Lists in some states. Telephone numbers including reverse lookup (in some cases even 'unlisted numbers' can be found this way). Education and Criminal records. And so on.Other notable events in a person’s life are available through newspaper archives.
So what this and other searches like it are doing is simply charging you for free information they pull in from howevermany sources.
It is interesting to note that when the Desk did several searches for friends and family here and in other states through the free side of the zabasearch.com site some of the information that came back was several years out of date, and in a couple of cases very inaccurate, one time the information was inaccurate by over twenty years.
As for their removal link. Yes, you might remove yourself from their database, but your information will still be out there through your city and state, the phone company, your school, and so on. So how much is removing it from their site actually worth?
All in all, it's not worth worrying about.
Thank you
Dr Leftover- at your service
Panic Email below
THIS IS NOT A HOAX!!!!
A friend forwarded this email to a moment ago. I went to the website and found personal information for every adult in my household including myself. Not only does it provide my name, home address and home telephone number, it also provided my birth date. The site also offers the visitor the option of PURCHASING my personal information for a cost of $100. This is disturbing to me. Please request that your information be removed if you find it after executing the search.Logon to www.zabasearch.com, enter your name and home state. This site gives personal and private information without your consent. If you would like to have your name removed from their database, send an email request to info@zabasearch.com requesting immediate removal.
End of Quoted Email SPAM
[NOTE: The Desk is NOT affiliated in any way with Zabasearch.
Zabasearch is owned by Zaba Inc. of California USA. All inquiries into their service should be directed to them. Thank you ]
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