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Pipl — The most comprehensive people search on the web
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Replies
Jay
I'm sure this site does its job, but isn't it morally wrong to support the scraping and collecting and syndicating of personal data? This is now people get spammed, harassed, or worse. Shame on Pipl.
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Hunter
@topdownjimmy the tool can be used for good and for bad. Shame on bad people, not on pipl!
How can people honestly think Pipl is no different from "the internet" or "every website on earth"? Sure, this information may be "out there" already, but Pipl mines it, collects it, stores it, and indexes it -- even after it's deleted from its original source -- *with the express purpose* of making this information easier to find. They are facilitating the distribution of personal information without people's consent and in most cases without their knowledge.
The average person would be horrified to see how much information is available about them by just typing their name into a box. (If you say Google is the same way, it's only because Google is returning Pipl, Spokeo, et al. in their results.)
This is colossally immoral. How is this even debatable?
Top Hunter
Weird. I didn't even come up in the results for my name. The actor didn't either.
@chrismessina Did you try using a unique data point? I just used your Twitter name and found quite a lot, e.g. you went to Carnegie Mellon. https://pipl.com/search/?q=chris...
@chrismessina As you point out yourself, Chris Messina is not a unique name, so if that is the only information you provided I'm not surprised that you are not necessarily the first or even fifth Chris Messina that turned up. As in all searches, garbage in, garbage out.
Top Hunter
@telavivberlioz you're calling my name garbage? Don't search engines rank results?
@chrismessina Of course they do, as does ours. But what makes you think that you are the top-ranked Chris Messina in the world according to our algorithm just based on your first and last name? What about all the other Chris Messinas in the world? Do you think when they type just their name in the search engine they should see your name first?
Now take what your saying to the logical extreme: What if your name were John Smith?
@chrismessina For example, if you specified in your search that you were looking for a Chris Messina in the state of California you would have been the fourth result. The specificity of your search results is correlated with the specificity of your search query.
The more services like this that pop up, the quicker and quicker we'll see email replaced by something else. If people's inboxes turn into spam magnets, then it won't be long until they stop check it entirely in favor of other channels that give them more control and less spam.
Hunter
It is simple like google search. You input the name, the email or the phone number of the person you want to get in touch with and Pipl will provide a rich set of information. It also provides an advanced search mode.
Definitely a useful service. The other great thins is whoeasy phone number https://whoeasy.pissedconsumer.c.... They always help me to identify unknown calls from different numbers and even countries.