U.S. Public Records (USPRS)

Intelius Blog is Journalism First, Marketing Second

2009-05-14T19:04:00.001-06:00

http://www.peoplesearches.com/news/
Easton at BusinessBlogWire writes a review of the Intelius corporate blog today. Like Easton, I have some quibbles with style (the posts are awfully long). But it's a great example of the kind of "journamarketing" you could be doing.

Intelius helps people get access to public information through personal background checks and other services. They deal with a lot of complicated issues, and the people who work there become experts in that space. So they're using their blog to explain some of those complicated issues. It's really nothing more than journalism. There's no overt sales pitch for Intelius. For example, the blog has entries about what kinds of mistakes you might find in public records -- and whether it's a good idea to publicize the names of people who've received concealed-weapons permits.

You might think this is a silly thing for them to spend time on. But when people want to dig into public records, I'll bet they almost always go online first. So building a repository of information, dedicated to helping people track down public information, will pay off in the long run with more referral traffic and a better online reputation among people who might use Intelius' services.

Information about Intelius, Founded by Naveen Jain

Founded by Naveen Jain, Intelius well known in the information commerce industry helps clients make intelligent decisions about assets, people, and businesses. Intelius applies advanced heuristics to public and publicly-available information, delivering it on-demand and online to consumers and businesses to facilitate a more informed decision-making process in business and life.

Intelius ranks among the top 100 most trafficked Websites, with an average of one million unique visitors daily. The many products and offerings of the company include a set of comprehensive and customizable pre-employment screening services, a consumer-facing people search service, list management, and an award-winning identity theft detection, prevention and insurance service.

Intelius’ background checks have helped consumers make better decisions about the people, businesses and assets in their world, from potential dates to new neighbors.

People search by Intelius, has reconnected thousands of people with friends or relatives with whom they’ve lost touch. In the HR world, Intelius’ employment screening services enable companies to analyze candidates’ professional backgrounds, from drug testing and fingerprinting to criminal records, professional licenses and education verification, plus a best of breed SSN verification service.

These services have helped create leads and confirm data for millions of customers, in addition to giving them peace of mind and the ability to make better decisions by making use of valuable public information. The Intelius executive team consists of IT and Internet professionals, technologists, business providers, and security specialists, and is led by Chairman Bill Owens and CEO Naveen Jain.

Intelius makes security available at multiple levels, including the personal, technological, and operational levels. Intelius also protects customers’ personal names, credit card numbers, and social security numbers. Intelius’ Verisign certificate signals safe and secure web transactions.

Reference: Intelius.com
http://www.peoplesearches.com/news/

AP CEO Tom Curley Discusses Open Government Effort

2009-03-15T17:46:00.002-07:00

Tom Curley, president and CEO of The Associated Press, is one of the news media's foremost advocates for open government and freedom of information.

In 2007 and 2008 he earned national awards for his work on First Amendment and open records issues, and this year he received a national citation for journalistic excellence from the William Allen White Foundation.

In question-and-answer form, he discusses the 2009 Sunshine Week initiative spearheaded by media organizations.

Q. Sunshine Week 2009 marks the fifth year of the national effort to initiate a public dialogue in the United States about the people's right to know. What's different, compared to previous years?

A. I'm sure the Sunshine Week brand and the goals and values behind it are becoming familiar to more people than ever. But for me the biggest payback for five years of intense annual open government teamwork is to get us used to working together on these issues. A united front is the only way we hold down our end of the checks and balances that make the system work. Our progress has been significant because so many grasped the threat to democratic processes.

Q. Upon taking office, President Barack Obama rolled back some of the policies instituted by George W. Bush and promised greater openness and accountability. Do you expect the Obama administration to initiate significant changes in the rules of engagement between the military and the media?

A. There are promising signs that make it seem possible, but we can't assume it will happen. Where the military is engaged in combat, everything it does is expected to serve the mission. We've seen the Pentagon devoting enormous resources to developing doctrines and tactics for turning news reporting in all media into an offensive weapon where possible, or, at least neutralizing any effects of news reporting that are viewed as interfering with the mission. We have to remain ready to evade or challenge such efforts. That's part of our mission. We've reached out to the military and are hopeful we might find important areas of common ground. After all, we both serve the American people.

Q. An Obama administration team has been tasked with the responsibility of writing an "open government" directive that will outline how agencies and departments in the federal government will be more transparent. What concrete idea would you recommend to put teeth into such a directive?

A. Appointing the "chief technology officer" who's supposed to coordinate the writing of that directive would be a good start. But the only thing that will really make all these good intentions effective is a work environment in government in which compliance with open records law carries incentives and rewards for government employees. Right now, even with the good messages coming from the new administration, disclosing information carries only burdens and risks to the agency executive who makes the call on a sensitive request. It still takes courage just to obey the law. That's got to change.

Q. Any movement on calls to Congress to make its records as available to the public as records from the executive branch of government?

A. Not that I'm aware of.

Q: What is the outlook for a federal shield law?

A. The people I talk to say there's a better than even chance a bill will go to the White House this summer. I hope that's true. The legislation as it stands now certainly isn't perfect. I know some in our business are unhappy with the definition of a journalist, and others are unhappy that government should be allowed to define a journalist at all. And there are more if's, and's, and whereas's than any of us would prefer in the provisions that say when the shield is effective. But on balance, I think it would be an acceptable deal for protection we need.

Q. Sunshine Week's government transparency project this year is enlisting journalists, educators and students, openness advocates and others to develop a snapshot of public records that states make available on their Web sites. Is progress being made in opening up government records without legal recourse on the state level?

A. It varies from state to state. The examples to emulate are states like Connecticut that have commissions or ombudsmen to help citizens use open records laws and in some cases mediate disputes before anybody has to go to court. Last year's federal FOIA amendment established the first step for such assistance at the federal level. It won't be up and running for a while, but it will fill an important gap in the ability of ordinary citizens to get information that should be public but which government resists disclosing.

Q. Does a weak economy hinder or help open government initiatives?

A. It certainly adds to the overall angst, but it doesn't have to hinder. The laws already on the books are powerful levers, and together we advocates of open government can speak loudly in persuading governments to abide by those laws. That costs will and energy, but it doesn't have to cost a lot of money.

Q. Any change expected in the media's traditional role as a watchdog of government activity on behalf of the public?

A. None whatsoever. Media businesses may be changing, but their role stays the same.

Reference: Google.AP

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Public Backs Criminal Record Checks

2009-01-06T19:29:00.004-07:00

The public overwhelmingly supports criminal record checks on volunteers working with children, Government research shows.

More than 90% of those surveyed said they backed checks on volunteers and a similar percentage said they would be prepared to undergo such checks themselves.

A report last year found red tape and unnecessary criminal record checks were deterring volunteers from coming forward.

The Commission on the Future of Volunteering called on ministers to remove bureaucratic barriers to charity work.

But in a Home Office-commissioned poll, more than 70% asked said they thought checks by the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB), which holds criminal records data, deterred criminals from applying to work with children or vulnerable adults.

A similar proportion thought criminal checks would catch pedophiles and other unsuitable adults trying to get access to children.

But nearly one in five people expressed concerns about how accurate and up-to-date CRB data was.

Figures released last year showed more than 12,000 people found inaccuracies in their CRB files.

The Home Office estimates criminal records checks have prevented more than 80,000 people working with children and vulnerable adults.

Identity Minister Meg Hillier said: "This research clearly destroys the myth that people are put off volunteering by CRB checks. Most people are only too willing to be checked and understand it protects children and vulnerable adults."

Reference: google.com/hostednews/ukpress

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How to Use a Public Records Database

2008-12-27T07:26:00.001-07:00

When you want to use a public records database, then you will need some basic information. If you are looking for information on a relative, for example, having their birth date, name and even their Social Security number on hand may be a good idea. Any information that you have can be used to find the person that you are looking for, including their date of death, if that is applicable.

What Can I Find the Information?

There are many different things that you can find online using a public records database, including birth and death records, marriage records, current and past addresses and phone numbers. The key to finding the information that you are looking for is knowing a little information about the person and where to look.

Thousands of people have begun using an online public records database to build their family history. You can often find records dating back to the 1800’s in many of the online public records databases, making it an excellent option when you want to find those who you only know by name.

How Do I Begin?

The first thing that you will want to do is find the public records database that you want to use. For many, a free database is the best option, but if you are in a hurry or want to see the results without having to look through several free sites, then you may want to choose to pay for a subscription to a website that offers information on others.

You may also want to check with your state website, especially if you are looking for information on court records or other legal matters. For example, background checks can be completed by entering in the relevant information, such as government issued number or name and birth date, to find out tons of information on the person that you are researching.

Laws and Regulations

Most of the time, if someone has their telephone number listed, then you will easily be able to find current information on them via the Internet. For example, if you are looking for a friend from high school, then you can enter their name into the database and find some matches based on your search criteria. It may be more difficult to find a person if they have been married or have changed their name for another reason.

It is perfectly legal to find information on people who are listed in public directories. If you are serious about finding someone online, then you may simply want to pay for a detective website, where you may be able to find more comprehensive information, provided that you know all of the relevant information that is needed.

Costs

The costs of accessing a public records database will vary from being free to about thirty dollars a month. Many different websites also offer a free trial, so that you will know exactly how to search for the information that you want before your trial is up.

Reference: uspublicrecordssearch.com

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Finding Public Records You Need In No Time

2008-12-27T07:23:00.000-07:00

Finding public records on your own can take hours, or even days, of hard research. By choosing an online service to help you, you can find all of the information that you need within minutes, so that you aren’t stuck at your desk trying to find out whether or not you should hire a new nanny, or who your great, great grandfather’s parents were.

What Do You Need?

The type of website that you choose should be based on what type of specific information that you need. For example, if you want to perform criminal background checks, then you will want to find a website that offers that service for a relatively low fee. You may also need genealogy services, which make finding public records from a long time ago painless and quick.

You may also want to find an old friend’s telephone number or address, which can be done for free on some websites, providing that you know their name and the city that they live in. If you do not know this information, then you will need to use a more advanced and generalized search to look around the nation to find who you are looking for.

You can also use free telephone directories to quickly find the name that goes with a telephone number, to make sure that you want to call them back before you pick up the phone. Finding public records doesn’t have to take all day; it can be fast and easy with the right website.

What Is Public Information For?

Basically, finding public records online can be used in three main ways. First, you can use the information that you find to build a genealogy report, which can be used for generations and generations to come. Second, you can use the information to protect you and your family, for example, when you are hiring a domestic employee. Third, you can use the information to find someone that you have been looking for, such as an old friend from high school.

Lastly, you can use the information that you find to help you hire and screen potential customers, such as someone who wants to lease an apartment, or potential employees to make sure that they are right for your company. Most of the time, you will need a different website for each of these ways of find public records.

Streamlined Content

Unfortunately, most websites that are devoted to helping you in finding public records won’t have all of the services that you need. There are often websites that are devoted to one specific search type, such as genealogy or court documents, but not both. There are the occasional few that can provide you will several different types of information, as long as you pay the fee or membership costs they require.

The good news is that all of these websites are fairly inexpensive, ranging from about two dollars per use to twenty dollars for a month.

Reference: uspublicrecordssearch.com

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The Best Way to Find Divorce Records

2008-12-27T07:20:00.001-07:00

Finding divorce records can be challenging, especially when you don’t know where to look. Luckily, there are several online websites that you can use to find the information that you need, without the hassle of digging through hundreds of files or using several different websites. The process of finding divorce records can be simple and easy when you have the right tools, and a website can be the best tool that you have.

Begin Searching

One of the ways to get started when you want to find divorce records is to simply use your favorite search engine, and type in the person’s name that you are looking for, along with a phrase or word, such as “divorce”. Even though you may not find much like this, it is free, and it may help you find what you are looking for.

You can also use a free site to find some preliminary information, although you will rarely be able to find divorce records in their complete form by using a free, non-government site. If you want to find the easiest, fastest and most accurate results, then you will also need to know some basic information, such as when the divorce may have taken place.

Free Searches

Some free searches will give you exactly what you need when you want to find divorce records, but you need to be prepared to be patient. It may take a little searching to find a free site that actually delivers the documents, without asking you to pay for their services.

Most states list their court records online, but not all do. For example, California has a comprehensive list of the court records that are on file available online, while Arkansas court documents are more difficult to access. A virtual private eye can be the best way to find divorce records online, especially if you are pressed for time and want to see the results of your search quickly.

Paid Searches

Most websites will allow you to do a preliminary search for free, but since you will only use the person’s name for this type of search, there will be several invalid results. The best searches are those that use some other type of identifying criteria, such as name and birth date, or name and government identification number. It is important to remember that, even though it happens rarely, some results will not be accurate.

The best way that you can avoid finding incorrect information when you want to find divorce records online is to make sure the site that you are using is legitimate, and that you have entered the correct information into the search fields. It also helps if you have access to a state or federal website, but since these are limited, this may not always be an option. Finding the information that you need doesn’t have to take days or months when you choose an online service, which will allow you to have the divorce records that you need immediately.

Reference: uspublicrecordssearch.com

(BackgroundCheckDirectories.com) and (FreeSocialSearch.com) and (USPeopleFinder.com) and (PeopleSearchers.com) and (VerifyPeople.com) and (USPRS.com) and (IDTheftDefense.com) and (SecurityInformation.com)

Can You Find Marriage Records Online?

2008-12-27T07:14:00.001-07:00

If you want to find marriage records in a fast, easy and efficient way, then the first place that you may want to look is online. You can easily find marriage records online, especially when you know where to look. There are several reasons why you may want to find this type of information, but perhaps the most important is if you feel as if your spouse or future spouse has been married before, and you want to find out the truth.

Where Do I Look?

You can find marriage records online using a background check, or by searching civil or court documents for a divorce record. Most of the time, you will want to find both the marriage and the divorce records, making a comprehensive search your best option. Luckily, there are many different websites that you can use to find the information that you are looking for.

A reputable site is your best option when you want to find marriage records online, so make sure that you search the Internet for any complaints that have been filed on the website that you want to use. The best websites are those that are relatively inexpensive, and have a large database with information from all of the states.

What is the Cost?

The cost to find marriage records online will vary, depending on the website that you choose to use. You can often perform a one time search for just a few dollars, but if you want more comprehensive results then you may instead choose to buy a month or week long subscription to a website that specializes in background checks.

The main benefit of subscribing to a website to find marriage records online is that you won’t have to worry about paying to perform several searches, which can happen if you are getting the wrong results from each of your searches. Since the cost of subscribing is typically only about ten dollars a month, you don’t have a lot to lose by paying a little more at the beginning of your search, rather than paying a lot by the time you are done.

Can I Verify the Information?

Most of the time, when you find marriage records online, you will also want to make sure that the information that you have found is correct. There are several ways that you can verify the information that you find, and this will be particularly easy if you have some information about the party that you are looking for information on.

Most searches that contain results will also show the government issued identification number and birth date of the person, so as long as you have this information you can simply match it up to make sure that it is correct. If you don’t have this information, then you at least need to know some basic information, such as where the person has lived or their middle name. Any piece of information can be used to find marriage records online, allowing you to find what you need easily.

Reference: uspublicrecordssearch.com

The Internet Age Helps Open Floodgates on Public Records

2008-10-29T16:47:00.004-07:00

The Transparency Train, produced by the Ocean State Policy Research Institute, and the Money Trail, a project of the Rhode Island Statewide Coalition Foundation, are part of a growing number of specialty Web sites across the nation that shine the light on government in a way that was not possible before the advent of the Internet.

The Money Trail rates Rhode Island school districts, cities and towns on their willingness to respond to requests for public records.

The Coventry schools, for example, get a “thumbs down” for a $2,400 estimate they gave The Money Trail to retrieve and reproduce about 300 documents.

Meanwhile, on The Transparency Train, information-seekers may tailor their requests through a powerful search tool, so that asking for “Blue Cross” will pull up links to some 200 contracts in which public money goes to Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island.

Requests for public information through The Transparency Train have resulted in 72 open-records complaints filed with the state attorney general, 17 of which have been resolved with the release of the information, according to the Web site’s sponsor, William Felkner, president of OSPRI.

Among other things, the Transparency Train has requested monthly check registers from the cities and towns so that citizens can track spending as it occurs.

Web site development and document preparation does not come cheap. Felkner estimated that OSPRI will have spent about $130,000 on the five-part Transparency Train by the end of the year, all of the funds coming from the private sector.

Harriet Lloyd, project director for The Money Trail, declined to disclose the budget for that Web site, which among other things covers the cost of Web development and legal advice, saying only that it is “substantial.”

With its enormous storage capacity for digital images, the Web can put voluminous amounts of information just a click or two away.

But in Rhode Island, government has not necessarily kept up with the capacity of the Internet — or responded to requests for voluminous public records.

The town clerk’s office in at least one community, Tiverton, does not have a scanner to convert paper records to a digital format, although one is on order.

Lloyd said she doesn’t understand why government agencies don’t make electronic copies of all their records as a part of routine office procedure.

She says there is a “culture of concealment” in Rhode Island that contributes to Rhode Islanders’ cynicism about their government.

RISC plans to have legislation introduced in the General Assembly next year to require government agencies to maintain electronic records, she said.

Lloyd said she is most disturbed by some of the estimated costs cited by agencies for scanning or copying public records.

In Coventry, Schools Supt. Kenneth R. DiPietro initially estimated it would cost $4,500 in clerical time to provide the Money Trail with what he calls an unprecedented volume of information, including hundreds of contracts worth $10,000 or more that run to tens of thousands of pages in their entirety.

He said he lowered the estimate to $2,400 after the School Department’s lawyer told him he could not charge more than $15 an hour, after the first hour.

DiPietro took strong exception to any implication that his department is trying to conceal records. Collective-bargaining agreements, for example, are already posted online.

Meanwhile, the idea for the Transparency Train, launched in July, grew out of a blog maintained by OSPRI founder Felkner in his role as a member of the Chariho Regional School Committee for the last two years.

But Felkner’s zeal in giving the public access to all the information that came his way as a School Committee member ruffled feathers, particularly when he disclosed the substance of ongoing contract negotiations that had taken place behind closed doors.

Reference: projo.com

Taking Control of the Digital World: Technology Has Let Us Reshape Our Lives, But With This Revolution Come Regrets

2008-09-02T16:33:00.002-06:00

This is the final Real Time column, and I'd like to use it to consider what I see as a dominant theme of our digital age, one that's emerged again and again in this year's columns.

That theme is this: Wherever possible, we are taking control of our digital lives. When we see a new gadget or service that offers us greater control, we adopt it with disorienting speed, consigning old ways of doing things to oblivion and refusing to go back to the way things were. By taking control, we're becoming better organized, more efficient and better informed about what interests us. We have many more choices and the kind of power over our time that was the stuff of dreams not so long ago.

But in taking control, we also enter a new world, one in which long-established business models have been rendered useless, and the old social interactions and rhythms of life have been replaced by new ones that aren't fully formed. That's an uneasy feeling, as if everything we took for granted turned out to be built on sand. Moreover, as with so many technological advances, the ability to take control is driving pressure to come along or get left behind.

You can see this change at work in the way we consume information and entertainment, how we shop, and increasingly how we communicate.

For more and more people that's now a portrait of a vanished world.

Once the digital-music revolution gave us the ability to buy single songs (or, too often, to steal them), we took control of how we consume music, rejecting albums and upending the music industry. Once the DVR gave us the ability to find TV shows easily and record them without fussing with videocassettes, we started watching when we pleased; stopped caring which networks a show belonged to and skipped through the ads that pay for free TV.

(And if we missed something, we looked for a streaming clip online the next day.)
Once the Web let us find and read news whenever we wanted to, we turned our back on print papers and the evening news, replacing them with a patchwork of stories derived from a dizzying number of sources, some of which didn't exist just a few years ago.

Many of us now listen to music, watch TV, and find news in radically new ways, and we aren't going back -- it increasingly strikes us as absurd to buy a CD to get one song, stay home at 9 on Thursday nights because that's when a show is first broadcast, or get our news from a single source. Do we care that our choices have thrown whole industries into chaos? Not in the least -- after years of doing things media companies' way, it's our turn. They'll do it our way, or get replaced.

It's not just entertainment. The mall, grocery store and bookstore now compete with Web versions of themselves, ones that let us shop in the middle of the night and have things sent posthaste to our door. We expect all these retailers to compete on price and customer service, to deliver quickly, to take returns, and to do whatever it takes to satisfy us.

How has our growing ability to take control of our digital lives changed us? Has that change been for better, or for worse? Join a discussion8 with me and other Online Journal readers. And it's not just commerce. Once our friends and family knew our phone number and called us on our home phones -- but people who were neither could look us up and do the same. Now we increasingly carry cell phones instead of using landlines, and we don't want our new numbers listed.

We don't see the need, because even though we have phones all the time, we're also reachable via text messages and email and social-networking sites -- and in many situations we're coming to prefer those communications methods to the insistent, one-size-fits-some summons of a ringing phone. Sometimes we don't need to communicate directly at all -- we drop by our friends' Web pages, Facebook profiles or MySpace outposts to get the latest, and update ours so they can do the same.

Soon enough we will take the next communications step, establishing a single link for those who want to get in touch with us. That will cement our control over our personal communications, and we'll decide to be findable again. Those we're close with will be able to reach us most anytime, with their communications funneled to wherever we are in whatever form we choose. Those we don't know will be able to send us a message, but we'll decide what to do with it, and what kind of access to grant.

We've taken control every time we've had a chance to, but not without regrets. We worry that our local paper will disappear, that our mom-and-pop businesses won't be able to compete with Web entities, and that withdrawing into online communities will undermine our real-world neighborhoods. In taking control, we wonder if we're also making a smaller world for ourselves, one in which serendipitous encounters are less likely and our opinions reverberate in online echo chambers of our own choosing.

And as has always been true with technological advances, the ability to take control drives the need to do so. Just as voice mail went from a curiosity to a must-have, cell phones and PDAs have made it so we're increasingly expected to be reachable -- on our own terms, perhaps, but reachable. Soon potential employers will find it odd, and perhaps even suspicious, if we don't have a Web page of our own -- and we'll feel compelled to have one, for fear that otherwise the information about us scattered across the Net will give the wrong impression.

At least within the boundaries of mainstream tastes, those who sample only the TV governed by real-time schedules and the music available in physical stores will find themselves in an also-ran world of limited choices before too long. Add it all together, and those of us who haven't already opted to take control of our digital-era lives will increasingly feel compelled to do so.

To be sure, most of us will be perfectly happy in this new world and glad to have control of it, just as we've been pleased to find alternatives to solicitors' dinnertime phone calls and holiday-shopping crowds and unlabeled videotapes of uncertain age. We'll have regrets, but for the most part we'll be too busy to get caught up in them. And soon enough even those will be softened and erased. We'll be hurtling along to new wonders, and will struggle to remember that things were ever different.

Reference: online.wsj.com

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American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia - News Release

2008-08-28T19:44:00.004-06:00

Court Upholds Privacy Advocate’s Right to Post Public Records on Website Judge rules that new law prohibiting dissemination of Social Security Numbers is unconstitutional as applied to website of privacy advocate B.J. Ostergren.

Richmond, VA - Federal Court Judge Robert E. Payne today ruled that Virginia’s new law prohibiting the publication of Social Security Numbers, including those taken from government websites available to the public, is unconstitutional as applied to the website of privacy rights advocate B.J. Ostergren.

In his opinion the judge holds, that the new law, which was passed during the 2008 legislative session, cannot not be used to force Ostergren to remove Social Security Numbers currently on her website. However, the judge has asked for additional briefings from lawyers before deciding how the law might be applied to new information placed on the site.

The ACLU of Virginia represents Ostergren, who runs a website that advocates against making personal information available on the internet. Her website, TheVirginiaWatchdog.com, contains public records obtained from government websites that include the Social Security Numbers of public officials. By posting these documents, Ostergren hopes to prod government policy makers to take action to prevent Social Security Numbers from being posted online.

“No one wants to protect Social Security Numbers more than the ACLU and B.J. Ostergren, but the government can’t carelessly put Social Security Numbers online and then tell the public what they can and cannot do with those numbers,” said ACLU of Virginia Executive Director Kent Willis. “That’s censorship, and the court was quick to recognize that.”

“In the end, it appears this law was passed not for the purpose of protecting Social Security Numbers but to silence a critic of the state’s failure to protect such numbers from identity thieves,” added Willis.

In his opinion, U.S. District Court Judge Robert E. Payne wrote: “It is difficult to imagine a more archetypal instance of the press informing the public of government operations through government records than Ostergren’s posting of public records to demonstrate the lack of care being taken by the government to protect the private information of individuals.”

Under Virginia law, circuit court clerks in Virginia are required to make all land records available on the internet. Land records are made up of deeds and mortgage information, but may also include legal judgments, such as divorce decrees, that contain Social Security Numbers and other personal information. The purpose of Ostergren’s website is to pressure state officials to protect Social Security Numbers by showing how easy it is for her—and anyone else—to obtain them.

ACLU of Virginia Legal Director Rebecca K. Glenberg argued the case for Ostergren. A copy of the judge’s opinion can be found online at http://www.acluva.org/docket/pleadings/ostergren_opinion.pdf.
Contact: Kent Willis, 804/644-8022

Reference: .acluva.org

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The 2008-2009 Talking Phone Book® Is Here, Featuring Pirate Radio 1250 & 930 on the Cover 08-27-2008

2008-08-27T19:41:00.003-06:00

The 2008-2009 Greenville Area Talking Phone Book has hit the streets allowing area residents to get all the information they need in one handy book.

The directory is currently being delivered free of charge to local homes and businesses.

The cover of this year’s phone book features Troy D. and Ellerbe from Pirate Radio 1250 & 930.

The Talking Phone Book is proud to partner with Pirate Radio as they bring the Greenville area another exciting season of ECU Pirate football this fall.

The Talking Phone Book covers Greenville and Pitt County as well as parts of Greene County in one easy-to-use directory.

The Talking Phone Book contains complete white and yellow page telephone listings, ZIP codes in the white AND yellow pages, valuable community information such as a new residents’ guide, area maps, money-saving coupons and much more! The Talking Phone Book also offers users large, easy-to-read print.

The Talking Phone Book is pleased to announce that an electronic version of the directory is now available at talkingphonebook.com. You can view and/or download the book directly to your home or work computer for white and yellow page listings and all the great features found in the printed book at the click of a mouse.

Information is also searchable at talkingphonebook.com. Perfect as a home page, talkingphonebook.com has everything you find in the book and more: - local business and People Searches, e-mail, reverse phone number search, web searches, local weather and more!

Additional copies of The Talking Phone Book are available at the Greenville-Pitt County Chamber of Commerce office in Greenville.

About White Directory Publishers, A Division of Hearst Holdings, Inc.: White Directory is one of the largest U.S. based independent publishers of print and online yellow pages directories in the country. Shaping an industry since 1968, White Directory has been publishing the nationally-known, award-winning Talking Phone Book for 40 years and continues to connect buyers and sellers through its multi-media suite of print and digital products. The Company publishes nearly 80 directories in 11 states as well as providing Internet yellow pages, SEM, video and direct marketing solutions for its advertisers. Acquired by the Hearst Corporation in 2004, White Directory also publishes 12 books under the Area-Wide brand in Texas.
For more information, visit http://www.talkingphonebook.com/

Reference: carolinanewswire.com

(PeopleSearches.com) and (USPublicRecords.com) and (BackgroundCheckDirectory.com) and (USPRS.com) and (FreeSocialSearch.com) and (IDTheftDefense.com) and (SecurityInformation.com)

Guide to People Search: Search for people -- and Find them -- with Powerful People Search Services

2008-08-22T18:03:00.002-06:00

People search services help you find people online. With the click of a button, people search sites can connect you with long lost friends and family members, not to mention undiscovered peers, partners and, of course, employees. For business owners, the result is a dynamic tool that allows them to not only search for people, but also to research, meet and build relationships with them. The potential is truly powerful.

Among the possibilities:
1. Use people search services to perform employee reference and background checks.
2. Use people search engines to track down sales prospects and business contacts.
3. Use people search sites to research customers and study clients.
4. Use free people search services to update your Rolodex and address book.
5. Use people search to gather intelligence about competitors and colleagues.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Start your people search via online phone directories

The most basic of people search services, online phone directories are virtual White Pages where you can look for publicly listed names, phone numbers and addresses.

I recommend: Online phone directories perfect for people search purposes include WhitePages.com, Yahoo! People Search, Dex and Switchboard.

Search for folks by name using dedicated people search engines

People search engines specialize in people search services and function as online databases where you can quickly and easily find public information.

I recommend: Popular, and free, people search engines include ZabaSearch and ZoomInfo.

Use reverse search to do a people search with limited information

A reverse search enables one to perform a people search with as little as a phone number and produce the name and address that's associated with it.

I recommend: You can do a reverse people search at Google by simply typing a phone number into the search engine. Try typing in an e-mail address, too.

Take your people search to social networks with social search

An emerging class of people search engines specializes in helping you search for people via their profiles on popular social networks.

I recommend: Free people search sites like Spock, Wink, Ziki, PeekYou.com, Pipl and Rapleaf offer people search engines that look for people in all the usual places, as well as on social networking sites.

Search for people via paper trails using public records searches

If you're after government records such as court documents, property deeds or vital records, including marriage and death certificates, consult people search sites that specialize in public records.

I recommend: You can do a people search of government records at USA.gov or SearchSystems.net. If you're after criminal records, which aren't widely available online, you'll need to commission a company like Intelius to do a background search for you.

Find servicemen and women using military people search sites

If you're looking for someone who has served or is serving in the military, you can do so using special military-themed people search engines.

I recommend: Do a free people search for members of the military via Military.com's Buddy Finder.

Do a people search in the blogosphere via blog search engines

Because blogs are tagged with search terms, you can use them to search for people; you can search blogs for their authors, sponsors and subjects.

I recommend: Popular blog search engines where you can search for people are Technorati, Blogdigger and BlogPulse.

Tips & Tactics
Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide
The more information you have when you start your people search, the more information you'll produce at the end of it.

Keep in mind that the information generated by people search services isn't always current; in fact, it's often dated.

You might not be able to access personal information in your people search like birth certificates, credit scores, medical histories or other private records without showing proof of identification, getting written consent from the subject or paying a fee.

Consider testing people search services with your own name before using them to ensure that the information they produce is accurate.

Reference: business.com

(PeopleSearches.com) and (USPeopleFinder.com) and (USPublicRecords.com) and (BackgroundCheckDirectory.com) and (People-Searches.com) and (PPLSearches.com) and (FreeSocialSearch.com)

Interview with Jeff Tinsley, Reunion.com

2008-08-21T21:16:00.003-06:00

Interview with Jeff Tinsley, Reunion.com

Jeff Tinsley is CEO and Founder of Reunion.com (www.reunion.com), which provides an online service to find and reconnect with people. We spoke with Jeff last week to catch up on the company, and hear about how it's doing. Jeff filled us in on the huge growth the company has been seeing, the impressive revenue numbers, and how the firm's services compete against social networking sites like Facebook and others.

For the readers who aren't familiar with Reunion.com, what does the company do and what is its business?

Jeff Tinsley: It's a pretty simple story. At our core, we're really a people search service, which provides the best people search service on the Internet. We help people track down people they've lost in their lives. The simple fact is everyone loses touch with people as you get older. You naturally lose touch with people that you care about as you move, change jobs, get married, and have other life changing events. We are actually attracting an enormous, older audience of people who use us to track down others they've lost in their lives, and want to pull them back into their lives. We're able to do that for them, by searching all across the web--all the public records and different social networks--and get them back in touch, and keep them connected so you don't lose touch again with them. At the core, we're the best people search service out there. It's a simple idea, we're just unique around the data we pull together, and because we search everywhere. We're also very unique because we help you find people, and also notify when you when we find those people, and when people are looking for you. Plus, we've really got a business here--our audience is fortunately willing and able, to pay for this very great content and services, and we're doing extremely well as a business.

What's with the growth you are seeing--what's driving that?

Jeff Tinsley: We have more than 40 million registered users, and we're adding 1.6M new registered users a month. That's more than Facebook is even adding in the United States a month. But, we're not getting talked about like Facebook. We've really stumbled onto something big with the people search, and also drawing an older--and more valuable--audience. New registrations are enormous, and the visitation to the site is picking up strong as well. We hit the top 100 for the first time in the Comscore numbers in May, jumping to number 90. And, we jumped to number 78 when the June numbers came out. We think our numbers will be even stronger in July.

I understand that you've got some quite healthy revenues and profits?

Jeff Tinsley: We are doing great. This year, we will generate more than $50M in revenue. Our plans show that we'll soon hit more than $100M, and do so very profitably. At $100M we'll be generating somewhere around $30M plus in profits.

It seems you might have lots of competition from Facebook, other social networking web sites. How has that affected your business?

Jeff Tinsley: The major difference is our audience is almost inverse of the Facebook audience. If you look at who our users are, 65 percent of them are over 35. That's the complete opposite of Facebook. Using the Quantcast numbers, only 19 percent of Facebook's audience is over 35. We do people search better than anyone else, and because we search everywhere, that gives us a real advantage. Facebook only allows you to search the Facebook audience. While globally they have a large audience, in the U.S. they only have 30-40M people. We are searching half a billion records. Facebook is only searching a closed audience--while we are searching everywhere on the web for people, which is an important difference, and our difference from any social network out there. Because of that, we can provide a better service. Plus, we have an older audience none of the others are attracting. People search services are sort of an on-ramp to the older audience to get them involved in social networking.

It's unusual in that you have both advertising and subscriptions in your business model, can you talk about your strategy there?

Jeff Tinsley: its ninety percent subscriptions. We love that. You can't just pull that off if you're a Facebook, and reaching a really young audience. Our audience, fortunately, can afford to spend a small amount of dollars, as little as $5 a month, to become part of the service. If you've got the content and services, and with this audience, you have a beautiful business model. It's not reliant on advertising, which happens to be fickle. Advertising in social networks has really been hit by the change in advertising rates, and what they're able to generate from advertising sales. We're not subject to that same kind of shift. It's a beautiful model if you can pull it off. We have nearly a million active, paying subscribers.

Do you get much competition from other people search services on the web?

Jeff Tinsley: They're all very different. Some are directories, others as white pages. They've all got a certain set of data. If you want to look up a phone number or address, you might go to one. If you want a background check, there are sites that do that. The majority of our activity is from consumers looking for friends and family. We're the place that people go for that. We have more than 260 million public records, and search more than half a billion social profiles. A lot of those other guys take very different approaches, usually around a very specific set of data, or a specific model for background information. Ours is more social in nature, you have a profile, and you can search on profiles. We also have other services that go along with our search, whereas something like a white pages you just go and then leave. With our service, you type in all the people you are looking for and we follow up with them when we find them. We also let you know on an ongoing basis, if someone is looking for you.

Took some venture capital in April of last year, what did that go towards?

Jeff Tinsley: That was really our Series A; it was a big round--probably the biggest Series A in a social network. However, we fortunately had started this awhile ago, and grown it little by little, profitably. We had made a lot of progress, and we raised capital not because we needed it, but because we wanted to accelerate our business. That's gone really well. We used that capital to reach more customers, improve our data, and our products and services. The business is now generating lots of cash.

Having done build companies before, what have you learned on making a company successful?

Jeff Tinsley: I'm an investor in a lot of companies. The thing I see with entrepreneurs is they don't think about all of the pieces they need to make a business successful. Some just think about how to make a product great. Some just think about how to reach their customer, and other just about how to make money. You need all three pieces to be successful. From day one, we've always been working on how to get more customers into the service, and we've been different because we actually spend money to attract them, and are always investing in the product to make it better. The business fortunately, has worked very, very well. You've got to have all three of those pieces to be successful in business, and we've been focused on all three of those things from day one.

Reference: socaltech.com

(BestPeopleSearchService.com) and (PeopleSearches.com) and (USPeopleFinder.com) and (USPublicRecords.com) and (PeopleSearchers.com) and (BackgroundCheckDirectory.com) and (IDTheftDefense.com)

Sleuthing Sites

2008-08-17T09:34:00.007-06:00

Here are a few sites modern day sleuths may use:

Court records, jail records, corporate records, and more.

1. Free Public Records Finder: Search free public records by state, view corporate records, court records, criminal records and more on this site.
2. Net-Investigation.com: Search by state to look up court records on almost anyone. This site also provides a background check crash course and tutorials for how to find the most relevant information.
3. Public Record Finder: Finds free public records using the largest public records search database on the World Wide Web.
4. Public Record Directory: Finds free public vital and cell phone records using the largest public records reverse search detective database on the World Wide Web.
5. Dates and Love: Run a background check, reverse cell phone number lookup, employee screening or people search on this site for free.

Criminal Background Checks
1. Detective Unlimited: This site connects users to a free version of the Intelius service. Results bring up addresses, lawsuits, sex offender information, property ownership, relatives, neighbors, marriage records and more.
2. Public Records Information: Search by state and county on this site and get links to investigation records, judicial organizations, sex offender registries and more.
3. Prison Inmate Search - Search for a prison inmate, prison records, offender records and sexual predators at Federal Prisons, State Prisons and County Jails

Sex Offender Sites
1. National Sex Offender Registry: The family watchdog on this site directs users to a search by location or search by name.
2. FBI Crimes against Children: Click on a state to conduct a sex offender search from the FBI’s website.
3. MapSexOffenders.com: There are over 300,000 sex offenders listed in this database. You can view maps of the offenders and search by name.
4. National Sex Offender Public Registry: On this site, you can type in a name, zip code, county or city to perform your search. Results include a photo, names and aliases used by the offender, registration information and address.
5. Free Sex Offenders Search: Perform a sex offender lookup by state and get public access to criminal records and jail records.
6. SexOffender.com Database Search: Look up sex offenders and anyone who has a history or record of violent behavior towards children.
7. US-Sex-Offenders.com: This site can search information and addresses for sex offenders in 27 different U.S. states.

Contact Information
Verify addresses and other contact information
1. White Pages: Online People Search destination, with more than 180 million people searchable in our databases.
2. Free Address Lookup: Browse by state or just type in a name to find out where someone lives in the U.S.
3. The Search Advisor: Search the U.S. database on this site to find missing people, do a quick address verification or find your birth family.
4. Addresses.com: This website offers a White Pages search, Yellow Pages search, cell phone caller ID and e-mail lookup.
5. AnyWho: To find a person or a business through this site, you need to type in their land line phone number.
6. MelissaDATA: You can verify and look up addresses on this website, which prompts you to type in a street address, zip code or city.
7. PhoneNumber.com: Conduct a people search or business search on this site, where you can find and verify addresses and phone numbers.
8. Superpages.com: Look up addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses on Superpages.com.
9. 411.com: At 411.com, search the white pages or yellow pages, do a reverse phone number check, reverse address check, look up an area or zip code and more.
10. Driver’s License Search: Find court records and driving records by looking up your applicant’s driver’s license here.

PeopleSearches.com
1. Zaba Search: This free people search and public information search engine features search options by name, phone number or social security number.
2. Free Public Records Directory: Find death records, court records, marriage and divorce records and a lot more on this “absolutely free” site.
3. Yahoo! People Search: Conduct a U.S. phone and address search, reverse phone number check or e-mail search here.
4. Bigfoot: Find individuals or businesses through this site, which can reveal e-mail addresses, phone numbers, addresses and more.
5. Peek You: Peek You is “the smartest way to find people online.” You can find out if someone has any risque pictures or information on their online profiles, on any site.
6. pipl: Brings up social networking profiles, public records, mentions on blogs and the Web

Reference: fictionway.com

(PeopleSearches.com) and (USPublicRecords.com) and (BackgroundCheckDirectory.com) and (OnlineProfilesSearch.com) and (USPRS.com) and (PeopleSearchers.com) and (USPeopleFinder.com)

Spock Co-Founder Finds Vertical Search Engines 'Fascinating'

2008-08-11T17:50:00.002-06:00

"Nowhere am I so desperately needed as among a shipload of illogical humans." --Spock in "I, Mudd." The same can be said of the search engine market these days, which is why Jay Bhatti, co-founder of Spock, loves his company's business model.

Spock: the Web site search engine and not "Star Trek's" famous Vulcan -- claims is has more than 14 million site users and 5 million monthly visitors. As a former Microsoft employee, Bhatti told InformationWeek that knowing the target audience is paramount to growing the business, which is why Spock focuses on people and not on everything (read: Google).

"When you look at the statistics, 30% of all searches are for people," Bhatti said. "It's a huge category, to be sure, but one where we know the traffic will be."

Launched a little more than a year ago, Spock isn't reeling in the page views, about 150 thousand to 200 thousand searches per day, Bhatti said. But the partnerships are making up for organic traffic. The company is actively pursuing contracts that allow it to be the "Search Powered By" choice for content players.

"Very similar to how Google started, we feel that search is ultimately about people, which is where our strength lies," Bhatti said.

For example, someone reading about famed General Motors CEO Jack Welch in the The Wall Street Journal could use an external search engine to find more information, but Spock (and certainly the WSJ) would rather readers keep within the paper's Web sphere of influence.

In addition to site search partnerships, Spock allows individuals to pad their own profiles with keywords. The company said it has indexed upwards of 300 million unique people with more than 10 billion data elements. My Spock search result looks a bit like my LinkedIn profile, except that I populated Spock with my own list of common keywords. I still end up on the third or fourth page no matter which search engine I use, (sigh).

A recently added feature to Spock is a blue band of suggested Titles, Organizations, and Locations. The list is handpicked based on a group of Spock's editors, which Bhatti said are used with all of the search engines.

"One thing we found is people may have a hard time figuring out what to type in a search bar. So we're helping them by suggesting a location or organization and get them started," Bhatti said. "It's just a random sampling that changes every once in awhile. It's not done by popularity but it's a way for our algorithm to stay relevant given the challenges of people searches with pictures."

To avoid spoofing someone's identity, Bhatti said Spock relies on known and trusted reference materials before populating the search with a photo.

Another challenge for people searches is the category someone might have. For example, a search for Boxer may end up with boxing champ Mohammed Ali as the top hit or California Senator Barbara Boxer. Bhatti said Spock's 30 employees (mostly scientists) are in the process of asking Web searchers to hone in their queries. "Did you mean boxer the sport or person," may be a preliminary result in the near future, Bhatti said.

On the horizon, Spock is expected to augment its people searches to social networks in the upcoming months. Spock currently has partnerships with MySpace, Friendster, Microsoft's LiveSpaces, and Bebo, but not the ever-elusive Facebook. This may change as the social network begins to open up its profiles to other sites.

Reference: informationweek.com

(PeopleSearches.com) and (PeopleSearchers.com) and (USPublicRecords.com) and (BackgroundCheckDirectory.com) and (USPRS.com) and (USPeopleFinder.com) and (PicturePeopleSearch.com)

Is Your Private Data on Display? County Records on Web Pose a Threat

2008-08-06T09:14:00.002-06:00

Ken Klamerus of New Boston had known the Internet held a trove of information, but he didn't expect to see his Social Security number pop up.

"I really felt violated," he said after discovering his Social Security number and other personal data on Wayne County's online records.

Last September, Michigan legislators passed a law preventing county clerks from accepting new records with identifying information such as Social Security numbers.

But the law does not affect records filed before last year.

Many residents of Wayne County and elsewhere are unaware, but some public records containing Social Security numbers, salaries, birth dates and other important identifier information have been on the Web since 2000, said Bernard Youngblood, Wayne County clerk.

The Free Press is not identifying the most vulnerable records to avoid providing a road map to potential identity thieves.

The number of Wayne County records containing Social Security numbers is estimated in the hundreds of thousands. "Years ago, it was common practice to include Social Security numbers," said Christine McLenon, chief deputy for the Wayne County clerk. "No one knew about identity theft."

Wayne County officials said they have not developed a comprehensive plan to redact vulnerable information from older records. They say, however, they are weighing the costs of a computer program, like that used in Macomb County, that scrubs Social Security numbers from online documents.

'A real urgency for security'
Identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes in the United States, according to the Social Security Administration. The Federal Trade Commission estimates that each year as many as 9 million Americans become identity theft victims, to the tune of $50 billion in losses.

Times have changed, and some agencies don't always keep up. Wayne and Oakland counties' online records still contain Social Security data.

Macomb County officials hired Affiliated Computer Services Inc., last year to electronically redact Social Security numbers online. The county paid about $485,000 to check more than 4.8 million documents.

"I believe there is a real urgency for security," said Carmella Sabaugh, Macomb County clerk.

Ruth Johnson, Oakland County's clerk, said she had also considered electronic redaction for Oakland records, but that the numbers used to identify land parcels in Oakland are too similar to Social Security numbers for the system to be effective.

The county has taken other measures, she said.

Johnson said Oakland County records from March 2006 to the present have been redacted of Social Security numbers.

Previous numbers are removed on an individual basis when residents file an affidavit seeking redaction.

Clerks also try to catch Social Security numbers before they get in the system.

"We have a decades-old policy of notifying people if their Social Security number is in a document," said Jim VanLeuven, Oakland's deputy clerk.

Blindsided by technology
Wayne County has taken no measures so far, but Youngblood said he has been talking to vendors to gauge the viability and cost of electronic redaction. He could not provide an estimate of the cost or the number of documents that would be affected.

Youngblood said the state law adopted last year also allows Wayne County residents to file an affidavit to have their Social Security numbers redacted from earlier documents.

Klamerus, the resident who saw his Social Security number online, said he had not been able to get past answering machines at the Wayne County Clerk's Office.

But he said a friend who called received another version: It was impossible for the numbers to be online because they had already been redacted.

Wayne County resident Cheryl Huntley said she had no idea her private information was online, let alone that she had to file an affidavit to have it removed. Huntley found out her Social Security number was online when a Free Press reporter called.

"I know nothing about computers," said Huntley of Belleville. "How could I know that this stuff is on there?"

'Sold and sold again'
Last year, Michigan lawmakers considered requiring Social Security numbers to be redacted from all records, said Phil Browne, chief of staff for Rep. Brian Palmer, R-Romeo. But officials concluded that would be logistically difficult because of the volume of records and changes in filing practices. No such bills are being considered. That leaves the onus on individual counties.

Macomb and Oakland have taken some steps, but Wayne County's system still relies on individuals discovering their Social Security number online and filing an affidavit.

Unfortunately, even an affidavit does not guarantee security, Youngblood said.

For years, companies have been culling private information from public records and selling it.

"These documents probably have been sold to a variety of different title companies across the country, to be resold and sold and sold again," he said.

Youngblood said no criminal charges have been filed as a result of stolen Social Security numbers from Wayne County public records, but says weaknesses in the system.

And that's what has Klamerus concerned.

"This is private information," Klamerus said. "It should not be out in the public."

Reference: freep.com

(PrivatePublicRecords.com) and (NonPublicRecords.com) and (PublicDomainInformation.com) and (IDTheftDefense.com) and (PeopleSearches.com) and (USPublicRecords.com) and (BackgroundCheckDirectory.com)

Court: Some Teacher Records Exempt From Public

2008-08-03T22:07:00.002-06:00

The state Supreme Court ruled today that school districts do not have to disclose the names of teachers who have unsubstantiated allegations of sexual misconduct made against them.

In a 6-3 decision, the court found that releasing the names would violate the privacy exemption of the state's Public Disclosure Act.

School districts still must release records related to unsubstantiated cases so the public can judge how school districts handled allegations of sexual misconduct, the court said. "The identities of the accused teachers will simply be redacted to protect their privacy interests," Justice Mary Fairhurst wrote for the majority.

Names of teachers must be disclosed only in cases where sexual misconduct has been found or some form of discipline has taken place, Fairhurst wrote.

The ruling drew a stinging dissent written by Justice Barbara Madsen, who declared, "It is important to bear in mind that unsubstantiated does not mean untrue."

Madsen said the public will not have access to information necessary to determine whether school districts satisfactorily deal with allegations of sexual misconduct.

"As a consequence, predatory teachers may go undetected and unpunished," Madsen wrote.

The case stems from a 2003 investigative project by The Seattle Times that found 159 coaches in Washington were fired or reprimanded for sexual misconduct, ranging from harassment to rape.

The Times report found that school districts often failed to investigate complaints against coaches, and didn't report them to law enforcement or the state education office.

While researching the series, The Times filed public-disclosure requests with Seattle, Bellevue, Federal Way and seven other school districts for records relating to allegations of teacher sexual misconduct in the past 10 years.

The Times argued that regardless of the outcome of an investigation, the names of teachers alleged to have committed sexual misconduct was of legitimate public interest.

The newspaper's request was challenged by 37 teachers.

A King County Superior Court judge found that the districts must only disclose the names of teachers whose alleged misconduct was substantiated, resulted in discipline or if a district's investigation was inadequate.

A state appeals court overturned most of the decision, ruling that districts could only withhold records relating to teacher sexual misconduct when the allegation was "patently false."

In today's ruling, the majority said, "Making a distinction between 'unsubstantiated' and 'patently false' is vague and impractical."

The appeals court provided little guidance on what should be deemed false as opposed to unsubstantiated, the court said.

"When an allegation is unsubstantiated, the teacher's identity is not a matter of legitimate public concern," Fairhurst wrote.

The adequacy of an investigation should not affect a teacher's right to privacy, because the accused has no control over the investigation, she added.

Madsen, in her dissent, wrote that teachers do not have a right of privacy because allegations of sexual misconduct fall within their public duties. The allegations do not involve intimate details of their private lives, as required by law, she wrote.

Madsen said the court's ruling will allow school districts to manipulate investigations to avoid disclosure of teacher names.

"A school district can effectively control whether an accused teacher's identity must be released by reaching an agreement with the teacher exchanging resignation for silence," Madsen wrote.

Chief Justice Gerry Alexander joined the majority, along with Justices Susan Owens, James Johnson, and Bobbe Bridge. Justice Tom Chambers also signed the majority opinion, but wrote that he agreed "in result only," with no further comment.

Madsen's dissent was joined by a Justices Charles Johnson and Richard Sanders.

Toby Nixon, president of the Washington Coalition for Open Government, blasted the decision in a written statement.

"This is yet another example of exemptions to public records disclosure being created by the courts rather than by the legislature," Nixon said. "School districts often hide evidence of patterns of misbehavior by teachers, coaches, and staff to avoid lawsuits.

It's one thing to expunge allegations shown to be false from a teacher's record, but we know from sad experience that where there's smoke there's usually fire — and now parents will have a harder time becoming aware of continuing patterns of accusations."

As part of the ruling, the majority also found that school districts do not have to release the names of teachers who received letters of direction, or guidance, when the letter doesn't identify an incident of substantiated misconduct and no discipline or restriction is imposed.

Reference: seattletimes.nwsource.com

(PeopleSearches.com) and (BackgroundCheckDirectory.com) and (USPRS.com) and (USPeopleFinder.com) and (USPublicRecords.com) and (PeopleSearchers.com)

Keep Searching

2008-07-28T02:53:00.002-06:00

Anna Patterson was one of Google's star engineers until she left in December 2006 to seek out something new. Venture capitalist friends gave her a curious suggestion: talk to your husband.

Unbeknown to Patterson, her husband, Tomàs Costello, had been building a start-up between car pool runs for the couple's three (now there are four) children. Even more surprising, Costello was building a search engine to compete with Google .

"I thought he was basically a stay-at-home dad," says Patterson, 43.

"I couldn't tell her, because in some ways, I was working against her," says Costello, 39, who previously worked at IBM and then at Stanford University as a research professor. (Both hold doctoral degrees in computer science.)

Weeks later, the two teamed up with the goal of creating a super-efficient Web crawler that would seek out vast parts of the Web that go untouched by the big players, and analyze what those pages are about. The pair has raised $33 million in venture funding from Madrone Capital Partners, Tugboat Ventures and Greylock Partners.

Their search engine, called Cuil, debuts Monday. That's Irish for wisdom (and is pronounced "cool"). It displays long descriptions of each search result, alongside images, scattered across the entire page. "We want you to be able to tell if that's really the page you were looking for," says Costello.

Cuil will pull results from 120 billion Web pages, which is, it claims, roughly three times the reach of Google, Yahoo! or Microsoft. Is that nearly all of the Web? "We think it's close, but we've learned the Web is larger than we thought," says Costello.

Patterson and Costello's impressive feat is that they've done this with a total of 1,400 eight-CPU computers (1,000 find and data-mine Web pages, the remaining 400 serve up those pages), while the big search services have warehouses of servers numbering in the many thousands.

Cuil attempts to see relationships between words and to group related pages in a single server. Patterson says this enables quicker, more efficient searching: "While most queries (at competitors) go out to thousands of servers looking for an answer, 90% of our queries go to just one machine."

Patterson and Costello believe this yields more insightful results. "We aren't a popularity contest," says Costello, knocking Google's well-known "PageRank" method, which counts not just relevance of a page but the number of other sites linking to it.

Cuil pays scant attention to the links but aims to do a better job with relevance. "Two pages about bonsai trees might be linked to each other, but that doesn't mean either of them is any good. The sites have to be talking about the right concepts to rank high with us," says Patterson.

A big part of Cuil's selling proposition is privacy. The established, big-name search firms look at which pages people click on, both to judge which are useful pages and, increasingly, to target advertising. Cuil disavows the latter goal.

If the link in the bottom right hand of the page gets all the traffic, Cuil might bump it up (as would Google), but it doesn't keep track of any particular user's history. "We don't care about what you've looked at in the past, and whether that might make you attractive to advertisers," says Costello.

Patterson adds that Cuil won't need Google's army of lawyers to answer subpoenas. If a prosecutor wants to know whether a murder suspect was searching for articles about poisons, it can say it doesn't know.

As Cuil's servers began pinging the hinterlands of the Web, it instantly heard back. One full-time staffer is managing the e-mail flows from pleasantly surprised Web site owners (and spammers). "We get a lot of people thrilled that they're getting attention from our servers. They suddenly feel relevance they didn't before," says Costello.

Firms big and small have struggled to make a dent in Google's massive market share. Costello and Patterson are quick to say they didn't build Cuil to be a Google-killer. Instead, they want to spark competition in search that has been lacking. "Yahoo! and Microsoft have tried to beat Google by being Google. It hasn't led to more choice in search," says Costello.

Patterson and Costello have lured two important engineers away from Google. Russell Power, a Cuil co-founder, was a lead engineer on Google's largest index, called TeraGoogle. Louis Monier, vice president of products, led Google's shopping infrastructure, and before that, built up eBay's search technology. He has a Ph.D. in math and computer science from Paris Orsay University.

Cuil's founders are quick to point out that there will be kinks: "Sometimes our results are more useful, sometimes less, and sometimes completely wacky," says Patterson. "This is a launch. It's the beginning, not the end."

To try out Cuil, go to Cuil.com

Reference: forbes.com

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People-Search Engines Try to Be More Specific Than Google

2008-07-24T08:14:00.002-06:00

Locate a long-lost friend or old classmate. Get dirt on a potential hire.

These are just a couple of the uses of an emerging group of search engines that find information about people.

Rather than scouring the entire Internet, these search engines troll only Web sites that are rich with personal information. The results they provide are individual profiles coupled with links to where users can find more details.

The goal is to cut through the clutter that Google and other general-purpose search engines sometimes offer when users enter the name of a friend, co-worker or celebrity. Internet users will flock to people-search upstarts, their founders hope, to get more-relevant information more quickly.

"The ways people want to find one another are increasingly moving online," said Michael Tanne, chief executive of Wink, a people-search engine that premiered in March. "A service like ours can give you a bead on the person you're looking for - 'Oh, they live in Santa Cruz' - or about the person you're interviewing with for a new job."

Enter the name of tennis star Roger Federer into a people-search engine, for instance, and you are likely to get a profile of him as the top result that includes photographs, a brief biography and links to some other Web sites about him.

For a lesser-known individual, the results can be hit-or-miss. A query of the average company vice president may fail to return a photograph and biography, but instead point to that person's resume on the LinkedIn business networking site.

Users can also search by attribute, like Scientologist, to get a list of individuals identified online as being part of that religion.

In addition to Wink, in Los Altos, there's Spock, unveiled this month to great fanfare. The Redwood City company received so much attention on its first day that its servers were overloaded and nearly ground the Web site to a halt.

Pipl, PeekYou and WikiYou are also in the people-search mix, though they feature far smaller indexes and therefore more-spotty results. ZoomInfo, a people-search engine focused on the business world, is a relative industry veteran, founded in 2001.

A central question is whether people-search engines are useful enough to steal a significant number of users from the general-purpose sites. Even challengers that focus on a particular niche have a poor track record.

Sapna Satagopan, an analyst for JupiterResearch, agreed that finding information about individuals - aside from celebrities - can be difficult on Google and its rivals. But she questioned whether there is enough room for all of the people-search engines that are trying to dominate the niche.

"I'll still go to Google and another search engine," Satagopan said. "But I don't need to go to three of them."

In general, people-search engines plan to make money from advertising. For now, their efforts are mostly limited to a few search-engine-style ads, although the executives behind the companies say that more-ambitious types of advertising are planned.

ZoomInfo is an anomaly in that it charges subscriptions for a souped-up version of its service that is aimed at recruiters and marketers.

People-search engines cull their information from Wikipedia, MySpace, LinkedIn, Friendster, various blogging services and other public sources. But the fact that they are offering up only public information hasn't insulated the engines from problems.

Lists of keywords, or tags, that the engines automatically generate for individuals, based on what's online about them, are sometimes unflattering. Someone who has written about child abuse, for example, may be linked with the tag "pedophile."

In addition, the information the search engines provide isn't always reliable. The results occasionally include fake profiles or profiles of people who are only tangentially related to a query.

"People say they are George Bush or Superman," said Jaideep Singh, chief executive of Spock. "It's an ongoing battle."

Filtering has removed many fake profiles from the service, he said, though he acknowledged that some still slip through.

People-search engines invite users to become members, which opens the door to additional participation. Users who sign up can "claim their profile" and edit the information it contains.

Allowing users to add biographical information, images or tags is supposed to give them a chance to project a more complete image of themselves to the world. It also does the job of improving the Web site's quality.

Policies for removing inaccurate or embarrassing material vary. Spock allows users to vote down an image or tag so that it isn't as prominent. Users also can flag an item for the Web site's staff to review and remove.

Wink allows users to edit information themselves. Users also can have their profile removed entirely by contacting Wink through its customer feedback system.

For now, traffic to people-search engines is relatively light. ZoomInfo reported 895,000 unique U.S. users in July, while Wink had 90,000, according to comScore Media Metrix. Neither site even approached 1 percent of Google's 124 million visitors during the month.

Third-party numbers for Spock weren't available. However, the company claims do be outdoing the rest of the field with more than 1 million unique visitors during the first few weeks that its Web site was publicly available.

The executives operating people-search engines also say that their services, as they are, are a far cry from what they'll be like in the future. The Web sites will offer users more profiles that feature additional kinds of information such as video from more sources.

"In six months," said Singh, of Spock, "it's going to be a different story with how much content is on the site."

People-search engines
Looking for an ex? Planning a family reunion? Anyone owe you money? Try out these free search sites:

-- Spock ( www.spock.com)

-- Wink ( www.wink.com)

-- Zoominfo ( www.zoominfo.com)

What they do
Rather than scouring the entire Internet, these search engines look only at Web sites rich with personal information, like Wikipedia, MySpace, LinkedIn and Friendster. The results they provide are individual profiles coupled with links to where users can find more details.

Reference: sfgate.com

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Secrecy Prevails in Legislature

2008-07-24T07:21:00.002-06:00

North Carolina residents who believe in access to public information (and we'd like to think that's all of us) have reason to feel disappointed about the General Assembly's recent session.

Not only did the cause of transparent and accountable government fail to advance, it actually lost some ground.

A group of well-meaning but overly fearful legislators wanted to clamp down on information about children in publicly sponsored recreation leagues.

They had the idea that exempting this material from state public records law would prevent sex predators from combing through names looking for potential victims - a scary scenario that even the bill's proponents admitted had never taken place in real life.

The more likely outcome would involve making it more difficult for local newspapers to publish a photo of a young athlete getting a base hit or scoring a goal without the caption underneath reading as if the National Security Agency composed it.

After the bill initially cleared the House, however, Gaston County's David Hoyle rationally pointed out the flaws to his colleagues during a speech on the Senate floor. A few other senators rose to concur.

The final version that passed both House and Senate does not exempt the information from the public records law, but it does give local officials the power to deny requests - which almost certainly means that sooner or later, someone will exercise this power without good reason.

A solution in search of a problem usually creates actual problems.

On the other hand, a different piece of legislation aimed to address a situation in true need of fixing. Hoyle filed a bill to restore the requirement that government agencies successfully sued for public records violations pay the plaintiffs' legal bills. The reasoning is both simple and sensible.

Governments tend to have much deeper pockets (meaning yours) than the private citizens and organizations behind these lawsuits.

Without the guarantee of taking a larger financial hit if they lose, public bodies have less incentive to follow the rules and keep themselves out of court in the first place.

Unfortunately, the bill failed to pass the full General Assembly by the time the short session adjourned. For the time being, governments can continue rolling the dice on attorney fees.

This situation actually is more like a stalemate, but we consider it a setback. Open government needs to do more than simply maintain its position, because secrecy doesn't have a long session or a short session.

It remains a constant threat, so a failure to advance against it at every opportunity essentially signals a retreat.

When legislators reconvene in January, let's hope that your right to know what the government does in your name and with your money gains ground.

Reference: jdnews.com

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The Ultimate Amateur Private Eye Guide: 50 Free Services to Dig Up Info on Anyone

2008-07-24T07:02:00.002-06:00

Whether you’re an employer trying to research a sketchy job candidate, someone suspicious of the show-off date they found online, or trying to research sex offenders in your area, there are a number of free Web tools to turn you into an amateur private eye.

Check out our list of 50 totally free services that will let you dig up the dirt on anyone.

All-in-One Services and Public Records Search:

Searching through public records is easy when you turn to these free sites that connect you to databases of court records, jail records, corporate records, and more.

Free Public Records Finder: Search free public records by state, view corporate records, court records, criminal records and more on this site.

Net-Investigation-com: Search by state to look up court records on almost anyone. This site also provides a background check crash course and tutorials for how to find the most relevant information.

Public Record Finder: This site uses "the largest public records search database on the World Wide Web" and pours through public records from the U.S., Canada and even Mexico.

Abika: At Abika, you can verify licenses, do criminal records checks, find contact information, dig up marriage and divorce records, and do a license plate search, trace e-mails, and more.

Dates and Love: Run a background check, reverse cell phone number lookup, employee screening or people search on this site for free.

Criminal Background Checks:

To find out if anyone has a criminal history, perform a free criminal background check on them using one of these tools.

Zimbio: Here you can run a free criminal background check by searching "millions of records at blazing fast speeds."

CrimCheck-com: CrimCheck-com connects users to over 1,330 public records and websites to help you with your search.

eFindOuttheTruth-com, Inc.: If it’s your birthday, you are eligible to perform a free background check using this site’s quality search services.

RecordCheck-com: Conduct your search on this site, and if you don’t get any results, you won’t be charged for the search.

Detective Unlimited: This site connects users to a free version of the Intelius service. Results bring up addresses, lawsuits, sex offender information, property ownership, relatives, neighbors, marriage records and more.

Instant Background Report: Type in the name and state of the person you want to search and you’ll find out approximate ages and cities where people who have that name live. You do have to pay for more specific information, though.

Direct Pass: Non-subscribers to this service receive a description of each database used in their search plus access to the public record locator.

Public Records Information: Search by state and county on this site and get links to investigation records, judicial organizations, sex offender registries and more.

Contact Information:

Verify addresses and other contact information by going to one of these free search sites, from the White Pages to the more elusive Internet Sleuth.

White Pages: The White Pages is a perfectly free way to find addresses and contact information for individuals.

Free Address Lookup: Browse by state or just type in a name to find out where someone lives in the U.S.
The Search Advisor: Search the U.S. database on this site to find missing people, do a quick address verification or find your birth family.

Addresses-com: This website offers a White Pages search, Yellow Pages search, cell phone caller ID and e-mail lookup.

AnyWho: To find a person or a business through this site, you need to type in their land line phone number.
MelissaDATA: You can verify and look up addresses on this website, which prompts you to type in a street address, zip code or city.

PhoneNumber-com: Conduct a people search or business search on this site, where you can find and verify addresses and phone numbers.

Superpages-com: Look up addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses on Superpages.com.

Internet Sleuth: Internet Sleuth searches databases at Addresses-com, Whitepages-com, SmartPages, 411-com, Anywho and Yahoo! to bring you contact information for your people search.

411-com: At 411-com, search the white pages or yellow pages, do a reverse phone number check, reverse address check, look up an area or zip code and more.

Marital History and Genealogy:

Has your date secretly been married before? Find out by digging into marriage and family records by state or county.

GeneaLinks: The free marriage records database lets you search ancestors’ records and link up to marriage records on other sites to maximize your search.

A - Z Marriage Records: Look up marriage records in the US, UK, Canada and Ireland on this site.

FamilySearch-org: This site lets you do a basic look up of named family members within a specific year range, country. You can choose a certain life event, too, like a birth, death or marriage.

Census Diggins: Browse marriage and divorce records by state and county from the 1700s to the present.

I Dream of Genealogy: This site is another service that provides free marriage records organized by state.

Employment Screenings:

Employers need to be careful about who they hire, and there are several free services that allow you to verify contact information, past work experience, and even driving records.

Free Employment Screening: This site offers a "comprehensive employee screener search engine" that lets you search by name or combine a name with city, zip code, employer and birth year.

BackgroundSearch-com: Do a pre-employment background search by typing in a name and birthday. Using a SSN to narrow down your search is optional.

DatabaseRecords-com: Sign in with your name and e-mail address to get access to a free employee screening report here.

Switchboard: Verify that an applicant’s past work experience is legitimate by verifying their business here.

Driver’s License Search: Find court records and driving records by looking up your applicant’s driver’s license here.

Real Estate and Rent:

Run a tenant check on a seedy looking applicant to find out if they’ve been blacklisted on one of these sites.

LandlordOnline-com: When you sign up for a free basic membership on this site, you’ll be eligible for two free credit reports and three free industry reports.

Deadbeat Tenant: Start by selecting your state and then conduct an eviction check or criminal record check on applicants.

Bad Tenant: This site offers free membership and a search to find out if an applicant has been blacklisted in the database.

Sex Offender Sites:

Protect your family and your neighborhood by looking up sex offenders by name or zip code. Some sites even offer photos of each offender.

National Sex Offender Registry: The family watchdog on this site directs users to a search by location or search by name.

FBI Crimes Against Children: Click on a state to conduct a sex offender search from the FBI’s website.

MapSexOffenders.com: There are over 300,000 sex offenders listed in this database. You can view maps of the offenders and search by name.

Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Public Registry: On this site, you can type in a name, zip code, county or city to perform your search. Results include a photo, names and aliases used by the offender, registration information and address.

Free Sex Offenders Search: Perform a sex offender lookup by state and get public access to criminal records and jail records.

SexOffender-com Database Search: Look up sex offenders and anyone who has a history or record of violent behavior towards children.

US-Sex-Offenders-com: This site can search information and addresses for sex offenders in 27 different U.S. states.

People Searches:

To conduct a general people search on someone, use one of these sites, which feature search options like reverse telephone number look up, e-mail addresses, online profiles and more.

Zaba Search: This free people search and public information search engine features search options by name, phone number or social security number.

Free Public Records Directory: Find death records, court records, marriage and divorce records and a lot more on this "absolutely free" site.

Yahoo! People Search: Conduct a U.S. phone and address search, reverse phone number check or e-mail search here.

Bigfoot: Find individuals or businesses through this site, which can reveal e-mail addresses, phone numbers, addresses and more.

Peek You: Peek You is "the smartest way to find people online." You can find out if someone has any risqué pictures or information on their online profiles, on any site.

pipl: pipl is another online people search site that brings up social networking profiles, public records, mentions on blogs and the Web, and even customer profiles on sites like Amazon.com.

Reference: internetservicedeals.com

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Report Finds Gaps in Federal E-Mail Records: GAO Says Agencies Are Inconsistent in Preserving Electronic Documents

2008-07-11T18:28:00.002-06:00

Federal officials inconsistently preserve government e-mail, creating gaps in the public record and making it difficult for the public to understand the activities of the government, according to a report released by the Government Accountability Office yesterday.

The report came before a scheduled House vote today on a bill that would create standards for the electronic storage of e-mail by federal agencies.

As the use of e-mail has increased dramatically, federal agencies are struggling to determine which e-mails can be deleted, which must be preserved as public records and how those records should be stored.

Current law gives agencies broad discretion to determine how electronic records and communications are maintained. Quality varies widely, according to the GAO.

Investigators looked at four agencies -- the Homeland Security Department, the Federal Trade Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Housing and Urban Development -- and found that all used an inefficient and insecure process of "print and file": printing e-mails and storing them in paper form. Only one agency, the EPA, was converting to an electronic system to store e-mail records.

The GAO examined electronic records kept by 15 senior officials at the four agencies and found that seven complied with all federal requirements governing the preservation of electronic records, but eight did not consistently meet them.

Meanwhile, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), the federal agency charged with ensuring that other departments properly store e-mail, stopped making inspections shortly after President Bush took office in 2000, the report said.

The legislation to be considered today would require the national archivist to regularly inspect record-keeping systems at every agency and the White House and certify that they comply with the law.

"This will impose upon government agencies to put in place a system to keep track of their e-mails and be able to retrieve them," said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which has been investigating the disappearance of years' worth of e-mails generated by the Bush White House.

"This bill sets out the opportunities for a periodic review of whether agencies are complying with the law, so we don't find out at the end of an administration that records are missing," Waxman said.

The White House's electronic record-keeping system is the subject of several lawsuits. In one court filing, the White House acknowledged that from 2001 until late 2003, it transferred e-mails to backup tapes and routinely "recycled" them, resulting in the purging of the e-mails. The administration has said it does not know how many of those overwritten e-mails can be retrieved and preserved.

During that period, the administration faced some of its biggest controversies, including the Iraq war, the leak of former CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson's identity and the CIA's destruction of interrogation videotapes.

Last year, the White House said additional e-mails concerning official government business may have been lost because they were improperly sent through private accounts intended for only political activity. White House aides, including former presidential adviser Karl Rove, used e-mail accounts issued by the Republican National Committee to communicate about government business.

Although it has sponsored six studies of agency record-keeping since 2003, the National Archives has not conducted any inspections since 2000, the GAO report found. "Without a consistent oversight program that provides it with a governmentwide perspective, NARA has limited assurance that agencies are appropriately managing the records in their custody, increasing the risk that important records will be lost," the GAO said.

Officials at the National Archives told GAO investigators that inspections took too much time and money. Instead, they chose to inspect only when they learned of a clear and egregious record-keeping problem. No record-keeping challenges have reached that level in the past eight years, archives officials said.

The archives also seriously curtailed its "targeted assistance" -- help it provides agencies to improve their records processes. In 2002, it completed 76 such projects; last year there were none.

Reference: washingtonpost.com

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Playing Games with Public Records

2008-07-10T23:51:00.002-06:00

It's not unusual for newspapers, or lawyers in Public Records Act or Freedom of Information Act cases, to accuse the government of trying to "hide" things.

Now a San Bernardino County case has revealed what may be a criminal attempt at hiding public records, a reminder about the importance of access to information about government.

San Bernardino County officials June 30 arrested Adam Aleman, a 25-year-old assistant assessor. Aleman was charged with six felony counts - among them a count for destruction of public records.

That count alleges that he destroyed the hard drive of a laptop computer that had been issued by the county to Assessor Bill Postmus during Postmus' tenure on the Board of Supervisors.

The link to Postmus is significant.

He was the central figure in a Public Records Act lawsuit brought by the California First Amendment Coalition and the Daily Bulletin's sister newspapers, The Sun, claiming that Postmus should have disclosed calendars and e-mails relating to a two-week period in the summer of 2006 when fires raged in San Bernardino County and Postmus, then the chairman of the Board of Supervisors, was mysteriously absent.

A San Bernardino County judge ordered a few calendar entries and e-mails released but upheld the county's decision to withhold many calendar entries based upon the county's claim of "deliberative process."

But during the case, the judge ordered the county to prepare a "privilege log," an inventory of withheld records and the county's reasons for withholding them.
The log revealed a gap in the summer of 2006 during which Postmus seemed to have been cut off from e-mail.

His spokesmen offered conflicting accounts about where Postmus was and whether he had e-mail access.

The DA's office has not linked Aleman's indictment to the mysterious events surrounding Postmus (and Postmus himself has not been charged with any crime).

However, the hard drive may have been destroyed in June or July of 2006 - the same summer Postmus was absent during the raging fires in his home county.

Was the hard drive destroyed in response to CFAC's and the newspaper's record request? Or in response to inquiries from newspaper reporters that preceded the record request?

Hopefully, the criminal proceedings against Aleman will provide answers to these questions.

Prosecutions of public employees or officials for destruction of public records are highly unusual, although the legal authority for doing so seems quite clear. Government Code section 6200 makes it a crime (punishable by up to four years imprisonment) to "willfully destroy alter or falsify" any "record filed or deposited in any public office."

The other counts against Aleman allege that he falsified and backdated documents for submission to a county civil grand jury that has been conducting an investigation of the Assessor's Office.

The grand jury's report, issued just hours after Aleman's arrest, is highly critical of Postmus' management of the office and alleged use of employees and resources for political purposes.

During its investigation, the grand jury apparently reported to the district attorney on its suspicions about evidence given to the grand jury by Aleman.

In April, investigators served a search warrant on the Assessor's Office and seized computers and files.

Public records, as the California Supreme Court explained last year, can expose "corruption, incompetence, inefficiency, prejudice and favoritism."

The alleged destruction of a laptop computer here can only lead people to wonder what the records on the laptop would have revealed.

Karl Olson is a partner at the law firm Levy, Ram & Olson and a member of CFAC's board of directors.

Reference: dailybulletin.com

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Government Lags in Providing Public Records to Media, Others

2008-07-10T23:22:00.002-06:00

The federal government is falling short in making public records readily available under the Freedom of Information Act, according to a study by the Coalition of Journalists for Open Government.

The recently completed study showed that 25 federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security and the Securities and Exchange Commission, have made little progress in reducing their record backlog of FOIA requests, despite a 2006 directive from the White House to reduce delays.

The percentage of FOIA requests that remained uncompleted at year end was reduced slightly, from 39 percent in 2006 to 33 percent last year, but the study indicates that the reduction stemmed largely from a decrease in requests rather than improvements in service. The CJOG found that the combined federal agencies received 63,000 fewer, but only processed 2100 more requests than in 2006.

The greatest backlogs were found at the Department of State (85 percent backlogged), Department of Homeland Security (62 percent backlogged), and the Securities and Exchange Commission (55 percent backlogged).

The median processing time for a request was found to exceed the legal FOIA deadlines in fifteen of the twenty-five agencies studied. Fifteen of the agencies were slower than last year to respond to “simple” requests, and thirteen were slower at processing “complex” requests.

Twenty-one of the agencies missed the twenty-day processing deadline for more than half of processed requests.

Of the requests that were processed, fewer were actually granted. 40% of records requests were not granted, the highest percentage since agency reporting began in 1998. The study also found that records appeals were granted at the lowest levels in ten years.

Despite the presidential order to improve public access to records, spending on FOIA requests has been reduced $7 million within the past year, and FOIA staffs were reduced by 209 positions.

A June report from the Department of Justice painted a different picture of the status of FOIA requests, claiming “remarkable improvements” in backlogs and request processing at federal agencies.

The report points to the agencies’ reduced backlog and high volume incoming requests as evidence that the agencies are improving service.

Reference: capitolweekly.net

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Yahoo to Offer Its Search Services to Outside Firms

2008-07-10T23:12:00.003-06:00

Yahoo Inc will let customers, academics and even rivals build customized Web search services on top of its own technology, introducing a resale model into a major Internet market where it ranks a distant No. 2 to Google Inc.

In the embattled Internet company's biggest step yet to carve out a more distinctive strategy in the Web search market, Yahoo said on Wednesday it is introducing a new strategy it calls "Build your Own Search Service" (BOSS).

In addition to deep access developers get to create their own text-link search services, Yahoo is also unlocking its image and news databases to let outsiders create their own permutations of Yahoo News, or Flickr, its photo-sharing site. Yahoo would even supply spell-checking services to partners.

Yahoo is fighting to remain independent in the face of a challenge by dissident investors seeking to dump its management and board in order to reopen talks with Microsoft Corp on a merger to form an Internet giant to compete with Google.

The move highlights Yahoo's own ambition to continue to compete against Google even as it partners with its crosstown rival in a related market.

Last month, Google and Yahoo reached a deal in which Yahoo will let Google sell a portion of the Web advertising that runs alongside Yahoo's own search results.

Yahoo estimates that for start-ups to develop new search technologies and run that across the entire Web takes a minimum capital investment of $300 million in terms of hardware, networks, data, coding and expertise.

"We want to disrupt the search market by removing that entry barrier and make room for more players and more ideas," Prabhakar Raghavan, the chief strategist for Yahoo Search, said in a phone interview.

Were Yahoo's search services to be embraced by new start-ups, Yahoo envisions a scenario in which its market share might remain steady but its resale partners and developers would explode, taking share from rival Google.

Based on recent industry data, Google had a 62 percent share of the U.S. Web search market.

Raghavan envisions over time seeing that share sink below 50 percent, while Yahoo's own share, now at 21 percent, might more than double through its resale partnership strategy.

Yahoo is seeking to make its search technology the underlying engine for the next generation of search services, borrowing a tactic familiar in the mobile phone industry, where established operators rent out spare network access to Virgin Mobile, for example, which owns no capacity of their own.

REMOVING BARRIERS TO ENTRY

Raghavan envisions attracting start-ups seeking to build services in the field of social search -- where the search results users see are influenced by what their friends find interesting.

He sees the rise of industry-specific search firms focused on medical or finance, for example, or visual search, which allows users to search by image rather than by text.

Two early partners Yahoo has signed up to work on Boss are personalized search start-up Me.dium and natural language firm Hakia, which relies on semantic search technology similar to that of Powerset, which Microsoft recently agreed to acquire.

First Amazon.com Inc, and lately Google have adopted a similar approach by allowing start-ups and other companies to rent access to their massive data centers, storage and certain Web applications. But Yahoo is going several steps further by giving access to sophisticated search technology.

BOSS is the second phase of Yahoo's year-long effort to remake its Web search strategy. In April, Yahoo introduced SearchMonkey, a service that allows Web site owners and developers to control how Yahoo searches appear on their site.

SearchMonkey allows a site aimed at feline fanciers to display a version of Yahoo search that only has pictures of cats. BOSS goes far beyond how Yahoo search might appear on a Web site to allow a developer to tinker with the basic mechanisms of Yahoo search to build separate services.

BOSS gives creators of new search services deep access to Yahoo search technology including query handling, search ranking, indexing and Web crawling under any label they choose.

Eventually, Yahoo plans to require that customers run Yahoo search advertising alongside searches in exchange for the tools. The strategy for so-called "search monetization" for BOSS will be revealed in the future, Yahoo officials said.

Beyond the commercial potential for BOSS, Yahoo said it is working with top universities including the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, Purdue, MIT and the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. This promises to allow computer scientists to perform academic research on search trends across the entire Web, something never before affordable due to the cost of such operations.

Reference: uk.reuters.com

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